


WIND AND 
WEATHER 



* L.H.BAILEY ± 




Class :^. 3 5 03. . 



Copyright^". 



\°iW' 



CORfRrCHT DEPOSnV 



WIND AND WEATHER 



THE BACKGROUND BOOKS 
By L. H. Bailey 

Under this general title Mr. Bailey will prepare from 
time to time, in small volumes, his personal estimates 
and expressions on the important and interesting sub- 
jects to which he has devoted his life. 



Published 
THE HOLY EARTH 

12mo net $1.00 

WIND AND WEATHER 

12mo net $1.00 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



WIND AND WEATHER 



BY 

L. H. BAILEY 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1916 






COPTRIGHT, 1916, BT 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Published May, 1916 




CU431287 



"-^ 




PAQE 



Contents 

\\s. Wind and Weather 1 

^ Cybele 2 

Release , . . . . 3 

Cosmos 4 

_ Rainy Day 5 

Night-Rain 6 

Day-Dust, 8 

Winter 10 

Snow-Storm 12 

January 13 

Dead of Winter 14 

Tropic 15 

Away 16 

The Wind 17 

Night-Wind 20 

"Wind Blows" . 22 

Symphony 25 

Trade-Wind 26 

The Great Voice 28 

The Upper Wind 30 

Ye Winds of the Sea 32 

There 34 

Purple River 35 

The Vagrant Rivers . 38 

V 



PAGE 

Spring Rivulet 41 

Between 45 

Starlight 46 

Star 47 

Riches 48 

Requiem . . • 49 

Enough 50 

Cascadin . 51 

Bell Buoy 52 

At Midnight . 54 

Deeps 56 

Sea-Grave 58 

Miracle . 59 

Columbine 60 

Campanula 64 

Apple-Blow 66 

Mighty Leaf 68 

White Clover 70 

Apple-Year 71 

Penthorum 74 

Prayer 76 

Hermit Thrush 77 

Yellow-Bird . 78 

Horizon 80 

Wishful Traveller ........... 81 

The Great High-Roads 82 

One 85 

Marvel 86 

Desert 88 

Spare Me One Swamp 90 

Mt. Tom 92 

vi 



PAGE 

The Summons 95 

Yonder • . . 98 

Mother Mud 100 

Hands 102 

The Signs of Life 104 

Farmer 106 

Farmer's Challenge 107 

I Plow 108 

Plow-Boy 110 

Here Ill 

Young Farmer 112 

John 114 

Tile Drain 116 

Child's Realm 119 

Country School 120 

Country Church 122 

Utility 124 

Goods 126 

Sower and Seer 127 

It Rained 130 

Vesper .132 

Daybreak 133 

Hill-Paths 136 

The Farthermost Hills 138 

My Purple Hills 139 

Beacon 140 

Out 141 

New Moon 142 

Spirit 144 

Rest 146 

Skein 147 

vu 



PAGE 

She Sang 14S 

'Cello 150 

Pause 152 

Poet 153 

Cover 154 

Strength 156 

Three 157 

Him .158 

Two 159 

Naught 160 

Anchorage 162 

Which 165 

Weft 166 

Fellowship 167 

Brotherhood 168 

I Am 170 

Process 172 

Wreck 174 

December 176 

The Woe-Winged Bkds 179 

Thunder-Call 180 

Discovery 184 

He . . 186 

Prophet 187 

Both 188 

Majesty 189 

Otherwhere 190 

Journey 192 

Back 194 

The Little Ships and the Big Ships .196 

Five 198 

... 
Via 



PAGE 

Hive . 199 

Nay 200 

The Rounds 202 

Faith and Trust 204 

Resurrection 205 

This Greenwood Tree 206 

My Great Oak Tree 208 

My Broken Tree . . 210 

Undertone 212 

Annette . 214 

Index 215 



IX 



WIND AND WEATHER 



WIND AND WEATHER 

Passengers on the cosmic sea 
We know not whence nor whither,- 
Tis happiness enough to be 
Complete with wind and weather. 



CYBELE 

Spirit of the raw and gravid earth 
Whencef orth all things receive breed and birth. 
From palaces and cities great 
From pomp and pageantry and state 

Back I come with empty hands 

Back unto your naked lands. 



RELEASE 

One day 

I went 

To the fields to rest. 

The sun 

Hung low 

On the rim of the West. 

A sparrow 

Chirped 

As it dropped to its nest. 

And my soul 

Had found 

The boon of its quest. 



COSMOS 

The rain came down 
In field and town; 
The rain poured down 
From houses brown. 

I was afoot when the rain came down. 



RAINY DAY 

The soft gray rain comes slowly down 
Settling the mists on marshes brown 
Closing the world on wood and hilt > 
Drifting the fog down vale and rill; 
The weed-stalks bend with pearly drops 
The grasses hang their misty tops 
The clean leaves drip with tiny spheres 
And fence-rails run with pleasant tears. 

Away with care! I walk to-day 
In meadows wet and forests gray; — 
^Neath heavy trees with branches low 
^Cross splashy fields where wild things grow 
Past shining reeds in knee-deep tarns 
By soaking crops and black-wet barns 
On mossy stones in dripping nooks, 
Up rainy pools and brimming brooks 
With waterfalls and cascadills 
Fed by the new-born grassy rills; — 
And then circle home across the lots 
Thro' all the soft and watery spots. 

Away with care! I walk to-day 
In meadows wet and forests gray. 



NIGHT-RAIN 

The heavy rain fell all the night long 
Through countless trees in the forest throng 
Steady and loud in a wild gray song. 

I heard the drip of my cabin eaves 

And boundless blur that the rainstorm weaves 

On stems and blades of a million leaves. 

I listened to hear the heavy roar 

Where swollen streams in their channels tore 

Far out in darks of the forest floor. 

And all else was still; nor life nor sound 
Nor humankind in the whole world round 
Gave note or stir in the depths profound. 

Torrent and drench lay the long night pall 
With billow and mist and fountain-call 
With the rain and rain and runnel-fall. 

And sweet it was in the pouring deep 

To lie awake in my vigil-keep 

Nor lose one note in the blanks of sleep. 

6 



And good it was in my slender shell 
While the nearing skies about me fell 
To be wet and free and weather-well. 

I thought of birds asleep on their spray 
Of the burrows deep where wild things lay 
And was glad for crops on farms away. 

A balm there was in the falling rain 

To the beast and bird in wood and plain 

To ease the fields of their drought and pain. 

Then the morning woke, and clear and wide 
The sun shone out on the countryside 
And the hills and woods were million-dyed. 

My cabin smoke mounted straight in air 

Soft rainy pools settled everywhere 

The trees were clean and the farms were fair. 

Oh birds in song, and the meadows through 

Oh broken clouds in the fields of blue 

The rain and the night make all things new. 



DAY-DUST 

OvEE the dust-deep roads I go 
Over the roads where dry airs blow 
Out to the hills that parch and burn 
To meadows sere that scorch and yearn,- 
Over the grinding roads I go. 

The trees stand stiff in heavy dust 

The streams are turned to silt; 
With ashes thick the ways are crust 

And weeds in cobwebs wilt; 
The pastures dumb in cinders stay 

The dingy cattle laze, 
The landscapes blear are sultry gray 

The sun swims deep in haze, 

I feel the dust upon my face 

It settles in my hair. 
It rises with each onward pace 

And covers all I wear, 
It enters ev'ry willing place 

And leaves its fragrance there. 
I feel the grit upon my hands 

Its texture on my dress, — 

8 



In strong clean dust I tramp my rands 

In dust of heat and stress, 
It joins me to my arid sands 

As on my way I press. 

In dust and rain the fields are mine 

In snow and sleet and hail; 
I must not miss one mood or line 

One drought or freshet fail. 
I want some contact with the earth 

Some touch direct and free 
That makes me quick to death and birth 

And ties all things with me. 

Away to dust-drift fields I go 
Away to fields where hot suns glow 
Out to the heats that shimm'r and bake 
To stubbles glare that crack and break,— 
Away to smoking fields I go. 



9 



WINTER 

Snow to my knees, shivering blasts 
Piercing slivers of ice and sleet 
Creaking trees all rigid and gaunt 
Clouds that drive in the wind-wild vasts 
Houses clean gone from field and street 
Footways buried to stall and haunt, — 
Ah winter, old winter, so braggartly hurled, 
Unfrightened we stand on the top of your world, 
Unprisoned and free as the birds that are whirled 
When blizzards are loosed and the tempests are 

sent — 
Unhurried we wait till your furies are spent. 

Wide is the world of the drifting snow 
Wide over the waste the white rifts go 
Travelling on with a ceaseless flow 
Out to the voids we never shall know. 

Frog insect and snake lie fast lie tight 
Hidden and snug in pocketed deeps. 
But we are alive come green come white 
The year is ours while the 'neath-world sleeps, — 

10 



Ours with rabbit's track and mouse's trail 
With grasses frayed and rough trees snow- 
limbed 
Fence-drift's clean curl and the seed-pod's sail 
Stumps white-turbanned and deep creeks ice- 
rimmed. 

Crunch and crunch through the white snap- 
ping crust 
With frigid bush and summer's dead stalk 
Where earth lies deep and ice-piles are thrust, 
The trackless ways are the ways we walk, — 

Walk out and out with the swirling snow 
On to the realms of bluster and blow 
Where ghosts of the years of long ago 
Shriek thro' the hills to caverns below. 

Stript to the bone is the wind-worn year 
Cover and mask and ornament gone — 
Clear as days to the sight of the seer 
We understand when the veil is withdrawn. 

Come on, ye storms! Together we reach 
Past and outpast the timid alarms — 
This is our day; and over the breach 
We go the way of the warmthless farms. 



11 



SNOW-STORM 

With windy haste and wild halloo the sheeting 

snow comes down 
And drives itself through bush and swale and 

leagues of stubble brown. 

Blessings on the waiting fields when the sheeting 
snow comes down. 



12 



JANUARY 

Endlessly stretches the snow 

The sun stays low 

The pinched airs flow 

Through shivering tree-heads bare, 

Scant windy birds are in air 

And the lead-blue film is everywhere; 

The deeps of the woods lie near 

The footless ways are clear 

Sconced in the sleep of the year. 

Glisten and freeze on field and pond 

The lines are unbond ! — 

And the gamut is stript to the ends and beyond, 

It is now that the four winds meet 
Tis now that the world's in my feet, — 
Call of my heart, be fleet be fleet! 

Id 

The snow! 



13 



DEAD OF WINTER 

Hoary and old 

Covered and cold 

The white zone sleeps 

Sturdily sleeps 

Gathering strength 

For the issue at length 

On a startled day 

When the slumber gives way. 

But the dozing palms 
In the tropic calms 
Never know 
As they grow 
What it is to awake 
With a startle and shake. 

It is worth while to sleep 
When the sleeping is deep. 



14 



TROPIC 

How tired the tropic seemed 

As tired as one who slept and dreamed I 

Half alive through the weary-dry 

The ravelled leaves hung low and high, 

Unkempt unclothed the jungle lay. 

And then there breathed a witching day 

When old growths went and new growths came 

Like a verdant brooding flame. 

And pulses crept; 

The bamboos melted at their tips 

And new tastes mounted to the lips. 

New rain-myths swept 

The tropic clean 

Joined sky and earth and all between, 

And senses roused in bush and lakes 

As one so gently gently wakes 

He had not known he slept. 



15 



AWAY 

My soul and I went away together 
Went away in wood and windy weather 
And nobody asked us why or whether; 
And thus it came that we slipt the tether 
That had latched us in to half-holds nether. 



16 



THE WIND 

The wind, the wind. 

The mourning wind ! 
It comes and grieves 
About my eaves 
It knocks and groans 
It cries and moans. 

And the chilly moon 

Rides aloft at noon 

In the mourning, mourning wind. 

The wind, the wind. 
The raining wind ! 

Thro' dripping sprays 

And grass-wet ways 

It winds and lifts 

It weaves and shifts. 
And I walk apart 
Where the storm-rills start 
In the raining, raining wind. 

The wind, the wind. 
The summer wind! 

17 



In idle ease 
Thro' weeds and trees 
It wafts and woos 
It soothes and sues, 

And I fall asleep 

Where the grass is deep 

In the summer, summer wind. 

The wind, the wind. 
The thieving wind! 

It whisks and starts 

It scuds and darts 

It whips the vanes 

It shakes the panes. 
And the apples fall 
Where the weeds are tall 

In the thieving, thieving wind. 

The wind, the wind. 

The winter wind ! 
It sweeps and soars 
It howls and roars 
It drives the snow 
It piles the floe, 

And the drifting sky 

Runs gainless and dry 

In the winter, winter wind. 
18 



The wind, the wind, 

The midnight wind ! 
When night hours wane 
And star-hosts reign 
In monotone 
It moves alone, 

And nobody knows 

Where the dead world blows 
In the midnight, midnight wind. 



19 



NIGHT-WIND 

I LIE adrift in the night-wind 
That blows the reeds in my eaves. 
Sounding the strings of the tree-tops 
Sifting its sands thro' the leaves, 
Bringing the tones of the hill-crests 
Down thro' the hollows of dark. 
Taking me off with its music 
Bearing me on in its bark. 

Oh mystic flow of the night-wind 

Afloat in the tops of trees 

Fleeing the touch of the twilights 

Roaming the crests of the seas, 

Stealing thro' glooms of the woodlands 

Searching the graves of the lost 

Stalking in houses deserted 

Where homeless spirits have crossed, 

Passing the desolate uplands 

Over old forests of sighs 

Up to the tops of the mountains 

Off to the vasts of the skies, 

Out in the crystalline heavens 

Under the chill of the moon 

20 



Lifting and weaving the cloudlands 
Till star-lights topple and swoon, 
Far to the uttermost spaces 
Where suns and planets are sped 
Bearing the souls of the living 
Out to the bourne of the dead, — 
Oh timeless drift of the night-wind 
With earth and stars in thy keep 
Flowing and roaming forever — 
I lie in thy tides, — and sleep. 



21 



^'WIND BLOWS'^ 

There was a game the children played 
In country districts where they stayed, 
As quiet as the rains and snows 
And native as the grass that grows. 
"Wind blows'^ they called this simple game, 
And all the fields is in the name. 

Billow and roll 
Bellow and toll 
'Bout tree and knoll 
The round winds bowl 

Roundly and roundly rolling; 
And fast or slow 
Or high or low 
We halt and go 
When round winds blow 

Like bells and bells a-toUing. 

Wild dry days with all things flowing 
Flight of leaves down bare fields ranging 
Clouds adrift and white winds blowing 
Straight and steady and unchanging 
Dust-filled highways ever going 

22 



And the tree-tops onward bending, — 
Sail and gallop surely knowing 
Where our journeys will be trending. 

Under and over and under 
Over and under and over 
Tearing the orchards asunder 
Lodging the wheat and the clover 
Plunging the woods with its thunder 
Headlong and change as a drover, — 
Where we are going I wonder — 
The wind and wind is a rover. 

The clear summer breeze 
Lies deep in the trees 
With hum of the bees; 
We wander away 
In the blue June day 
With the winds to play; 
And we hardly know 
What way we should go 
So softly they flow. 

So that was the way 
Did the children play. 
They stept from the door 
With the fields before 
And followed the course 
As they felt the force 

23 



Of winds as they pass 

In gardens and grass, 

Like a thistle seed 

From its prison freed. 

And tiring to roam 

They turned themselves home. 

Oh children, children, many a day 

IVe followed the winds in fields away. 

To birds a-wing and the river-flows 

To meadows free where the wild phlox grows, 

When woods and shores and life were the aim 

And texts and schools were only a name. 

And I never will be so old and gray 

But I'll track the winds in their wander-way. 



24 



SYMPHONY 

The leaves upon the aspen-tree 
They poppled in the breeze 
And held the drifting harmony 
Of music in the trees. 



25 



TRADE-WIND 

Breath of the seas, of the four-way seas 

Balm of the tropic isles 

Wafture of ease, of the month-long ease 

Roll of the magic miles, — 

The trade-wind blows from the end of days 

Soft and silken and rare 

Curling the crests of the blue-white sprays 

Playing my sleeves and hair. 

Blow, ye trade-wind, blow, 
The ship is swinging low; 
Blow, ye trade-wind, blow, 
Around the world we go. 

Dreams of the mains, of the blue-thin mains 

Sighted from tar-patched sails 

Call of the lanes, of the long salt lanes 

Flavor of old sea-tales, — 

Down the tropic and far on the Line 

Safe past the doldrum calms 

The trades bring word of the rover brine 

And reefs thin-ringed with palms. 

26 



Blow, ye trade-wind, blow, 
With music soft and low; 
Blow, ye trade-wind, blow, 
Over the earth we go. 

Athwart the lines the world-winds roam- 
The freighted ships are sailing home. 



27 



THE GREAT VOICE 

The greatest voice in nature 

Is the blowing of the wind. 

It holds its mood and gature 

In the palm-tree and the lind. 

All other sounds are local 

And with time or place are twinned. 

But the wind is ev'r vocal 

From Columbia unto Ind. 

It moves in easy stages 

On the long and grassy leas. 

And leisurely engages 

With the gardens and the trees; 

And it shouts soundless pseans 

In the far and vast degrees, 

A spirit of old eons 

Weeping lone on rolling seas. 

I hear its high rehearsal 
When the midnight epochs run. 
With message universal 
And the world in unison; 

28 



I hear it in the morning 
Bringing strength of storm and sun, 
Of nerveless doubt forewarning 
And my day of work is won. 

Rolls the rhythm instrumental 
Bugle-blown and violined, 
Strikes the stave accidental 
Timbrel-toned and siren-spinned, — 
Mortal hears and makes them his 
When the soul is disciplined. 
All the world a poem is 
To them that hearken to the wind. 



29 



THE UPPER WIND 

Far off on the headland meadow-heights we went 
one autumn day 

The wind was driving mightily in a sky cloud-torn 
and gray 

The birds to covert were driven in, old trees shrieked 
loud and high 

The dead year's crop of shattered leaves in the 
gales went whipping by 

And broken smokes of chimney-stacks in the round- 
ing valleys lay, — 

Oh God, thy wind is good! 

Down in the ripping canyon-cuts and up on the 
grimy wall 

Deep in mud of the ragged brooks, through fleck 
of the water-brawl 

Sheer on crests of the precipice where the worlds 
stretch out below 

And silver threads of flattened streams in the mot- 
tled marshes go 

Away on the tops with jump and run, and on with 
shout and call, — 

Oh God, thy wind is good! 

30 



Then calm in a nook on the leeward scarf of a 
bluff-head sheer 

We rode in leash of strident gales in the burst- 
ing atmosphere 

The leaves sucked out of the stilled recess and off 
in space were hurled 

And fell in droves down the nether lanes like cloths 
of gold unfurled 

And rolling ranks of the wind-bare trees arose in 
tier on tier, — 

Oh God, thy wind is good! 

Out and away to the farther skies, to clouds that 

bound the ken 
Down on the empty distances and back to the 

ends again 
The great old winds of the meadow-tops blow 

through me clean and clean 
And drive me down the firmament in the rifts of 

gray and green 
And through the tinctured sunsets and flaming 

fields of oxygen, — 

Oh God, thy wind is good! 



31 



YE WINDS OF THE SEA 

Ye gray winds of the ocean, where have ye been 
Which way have ye come and where did ye begin ? 
What wastes have ye crossed in the uttermost miles 
What hostelless strands on the far-lying isles? 
What deeps have ye touched that no mortal hath 

seen 
And news of the leagues that lie pathless be- 
tween? 

Ah, lifeless and deathless ye bring me no word 
Of the signs ye have seen, of dooms ye have 

heard 
And onward ye go to the ends beyond ken 
And never return to the starting again. 
And no bounds do ye set, no homes do ye keep 
No shores for a refuge, no pardon of sleep 
But ever and ever past line and degree 
Ye roam and ye roam on the favorless sea. 

No balm and no solace, no rescue or rest 
No heed and no ward of behoof or behest 
Detached and alone ye go whither ye will 
And when eons have passed ye wander on still. 

32 



But no hurt of the heart, no fret of the head 
Are borne on the winds when the worker is dead 
And my soul goeth out with the winds of the sea 
The winds that are timeless and placeless and free. 



33 



THERE 

There is a ship on southern seas 
That sails from isle to isle, 

Its sheets are bellying in the breeze 
On many-a crystal mile. 

And I have sailed upon that ship 
Where dreaming strands advance, 

And I have watched its gunwales dip 
Along the free expanse. 

There is a ship on southern seas — 

I wonder where to-day 
And who it is that feels the breeze 

Upon its crystal way. 



34 



PURPLE RIVER 

The purple river runneth on 

'Twixt banks of earth and heaven; 

All wrinkle-starred its waters are 
By sheeting sunlights given; 

All dark and deep its ripples fall 
By raven night-winds riven. 

I lie along the languid banks 
The banks that bear their burthen; 

A little leaf lies in the grass 
The grass is cool and earthen; 

A spider spins its circles deft 
The circles wind and girthen. 

A clover braids a globed head 
A wild bee tracks the treasure; 

A swallow sweeps the waters low 
A sparrow pours his measure. 

And far and free a filmy cloud 
Wreathes deep within the azure. 

And ripple ripple on the shore 
The waves wash up the gravel, 

35 



The while the dry-winged dragon-flies 
Their flimsy flights enravel 

And on the pools the water-bugs 
In ceaseless circuits travel. 

The ripples and the dragon-flies 
The sparrow and the spider 

The swallow and the swimming cloud 
The river and its rider — 

They settle in my swinging sense 
That deeper grows and wider. 

And ever on the river runs 

With winds and weeds and weather. 
And ever stay the streaming sticks 

That turn and twine together; 
And sunken worlds unending weave 

Of sky and hill and heather. 

A shingle sails along the surf 
From some far cottage-cover, 

The rotting wracks of distant farms 
In hollow eddies hover, 

And now and then there passes on 
A note from lass to lover. 

And 'twixt the surges ceaselessly 

A straight and stringing streamer 
Points on the way the waters go 
36 



To shores and seas supremer; 
And on the river rides the foam 
And on the bank the dreamer. 

For still I sit all silently 

And mark the water's motion, 

I watch the spinning spirals swirl 
And mix their magic potion; 

I wonder how the mazes merge 
From highland hill to ocean. 

The sun and swooning moon swim by 
And shine in surge and shallow, 

The soft slow winds exhale from earth 
And breathe in bray and sallow; 

The torrent ties them all in one 
And night falls on the fallow. 

And ever on the breezes blow 

And ever runs the river, 
Forever wind the bending weeds 

Alway the sheer leaves shiver, 
The whiles the wonder-web of life 

Is woven by the Weaver. 



37 



THE VAGRANT RIVERS 

From mountain-foot to ocean-breast the vacant 

rivers run 
Forsaken through a teeming land with work that^s 

never done 
Nor ever sloop or punt or yawl upon their billow 

rides 
The while the waiting produce rots upon their 

bursting sides. 

No fishing folk upon their shores, no little mills to 
turn. 

No clustered homes along their banks, no altar- 
fires to burn, 

All fruitless in a fruitful land they roll out to 
the sea 

Nor bear one jot of human love to mark their des- 
tiny. 

Ere we upon these western lands had placed an 

eager shoe 
Along these streams the Indian had pushed his 

frail canoe, 

38 



Across divides his trails he led and down new- 
rivers went 

And drew a web of tribe and search within the 
continent. 

Raw nature cast upon the drift her freight of ice 

and scrog 
And scattered far her pregnant seeds on raft of 

root and log, 
And migrant birds and footed beasts led out their 

leading-lines 
Along the marge of stream and lake in palm and 

frigid pines. 

Yet we yet we the conquer-men, the men of will 

and weal 
Have bound our hands and lashed our feet with 

bands of belted steel, 
And wantonly on cleansing floods our filth and 

draff we pour 
Nor fish nor beast can habit where our sins lie 

^long the shore. 

But nature is our background still, and wide as 

winds that blow 
Must stead ourselves by wood and wold and by 

the river-flow 
Nor lose one whit of vantage free that lies in crop 

and rill 
Or girds us with great mastery to ev'ry field we till. 

39 



From sanded Gulf to green Quebec the wastrel 
rivers run 

By farm and fane they hurry on, nor burden borne 
or won, 

Nor fishing folk along their shores, nor little mills 
to turn. 

Nor clustered homes upon their banks, nor altar- 
fires to burn. 



40 



SPRING RIVULET 

When the March suns come 

And meadows are free 

And the waters start 

A-way to the sea, 

Far back in the fields 

When the keen winds blow 

I follow a rill 

From a bank of snow. 

There the last drift lies 

In a fence-row hedge 

And an inch-wide thread 

Drops out of its edge; 

And the day-old pools 

Ice-rimmed on the grass 

Seep into the stream 

As its waters pass. 
Sparkle and sparkle the streamlets roam, 
Grasses and twigs are pointing from home. 

Oh winter, my winter, you have left me again; 
The snow's gone from the hillsides and meadows are 
bare, 

41 



The orchards are vacant and all stark is the glen, 
The highways are drying and the woodlands are spare. 

Through the pastures high 

Now free of their snows 

On gray matted sod 

The rivulet grows, — 

Dips under a root 

Falls over a stone 

Slips under a bank 

With a muflBed tone. 

Shines out in the sun 

Then sweeps round a knoll 

And spreads clear and still 

In a weed-edged bowl. 

It drains the mud slews 

In the fields of wheat 

And lays down the silt 

Where the currents meet. 
Bubble and bubble tumbles the foam, 
Grasses and twigs will find a new home. 

Oh robin, my robin, you are with me again; 
The sap's in the maple and the wood-twigs are bright, 
The fence-rows are waking and afield are the men. 
The March-winds are roaming and the willows are 
white. 

It follows a groove 
Turned out by the share 

42 



Then digs to the rocks 

And washes them bare; 

Then into high swales 

^Mongst the cat-tail reeds 

Where the bushes dip 

With burden of weeds; 

And over a cliff 

It splinters and falls 

And dashes its spray 

On the frost-work walls; 

Then on to the flats 

Where the frogs will peep 

And the pebbles shine 

In its bottoms deep. 
SUent and silent under the loam, 
Grasses and twigs at last are at home. 

Oh willow^ my willow, you have come once again; 
The sun's on the marshes and the brooksides are green, 
The lowlands are warming and astir is the fen, 
The red-wing is calling and the marsh-pools are clean. 

When the June days come 
And the growths have spread 
I pick out the course 
Of the dry stream bed; — 
A pathway of stones 
A dip in the land 
A basin of silt 

43 



A handful of sand; 

A wisp of dry grass 

Hung over the brim 

A log-jam of sticks 

Where the stream was slim; — 

Its life was as full 

For a week or day 

As rivers that roll 

To the sea alway. 

Babble and babble next spring ^twill roam. 
Grasses and twigs will again sail home. 



44 



BETWEEN 

To eastward from my mountain height 
The day was coming on; 
To westward lay the blacks of night 
On-marching from the sun. 



45 



STARLIGHT 

I SLEPT night long in the starlight 
Under the calm great sky 
The cool of the depths was about me 
As the silent hours went by. 

The day had been one of dejection 
It had followed me on to my rest 
And I took me out to the starlights 
When the day went down in the west, 

Often I woke from my slumber 
And the silent stars were there 
In passionless steadfast legions 
On guard in the welkin bare. 

Under the gleam of the star-shine 
Motionless long I lay 
Knowing at last I had mastered, — 
As calm and as silent as they. 



46 



STAR 

Twinkle, twinkle little star 
How I wonder what you are! 

If I knew then I should learn 
What some man shall yet diseern- 
What it is that sets us here 
Each within his proper sphere 
Making plain to contemplate 
On the miracles of fate. 

But I think that now I see 
What your twinkle is to me — 
Just a little friendly light 
Set against the roof of night 
As the trees do stand by day 
When I walk upon my way. 

Twinkle, twinkle little star 
You are not so very far! 



47 



RICHES 

I LOOKED into the lily-bell to see what lay within, 
To find how deep the chalice was, what nectar 
pearled therein. 

The bottoms of the lily-cups with olden treasure in 
Have hung upon the thoroughways wherever I have 
been. 



48 



REQUIEM 

There is a place that I know well 
It lieth by the sea 
And there the faded years do dwell 
And roll their billows back to me. 

On all the shores of all the seas 
These ageless bygones be 
A requiem of earth's memories 
And ev'ry wave a century. 

I walk alone on timeless shores 
Beside the swelling sea 
And let the surge from far Azores 
Bring in its ancient melody. 



49 



ENOUGH 

Once upon a Sunday 
On the Bay of Fundy 
I heard the billows roar 
Against a naked shore; 
There was no roof or steeple 
There were no streets or people 
So I let the breakers roar 
For I wanted nothing more. 



50 



CASCADIN 

I KNOW a little limpid lin 
Within a woodland green 
That drops its fragile waters in 
A basin cool and clean. 

A hemlock bough hangs on the rim 
Quaint mosses hem it in 
Some tender tufts of grasses slim 
Repeat themselves within. 

Two feet the beamy waters drop 
With cadence crystalline 
A tiny rill bears from the top 
An echo fine and thin. 

No name the shelved linnel has 
With which it may begin 
In storm it falls as sweetly as 
It falls when calms are in. 

I know a little limpid lin 
Within a forest grot — 
In grosser lands where I have been 
I mind the gurgy spot. 



51 



BELL BUOY 

I SIT on the waves 
I toss in the storm 
And the salt spray laves 
My skeleton form; 
And all the day long 
With a reckless ease 
I roll my ding-dong 
On the ear o' the breeze. 

And the mermaids hear 
In the ebb and flow 
And they shake with fear 
In their beds below; 
And the sea-sprite goes 
In haste and away 
As I ring my woes 
At the break of day. 

And still thro' the night 
When the sea-winds moan 
And the phosph'rous light 
Mocks the shim'ring moon, 

52 



I toll out the time 
In monotone knell, 
In dull hollow rhyme 
Like a voice from hell. 

So I sit and swing 
Where the billows be 
A phantom-like thing — 
A ghost of the sea; 
And out from my bars 
Floats the doleful tone 
Out under the stars 
Of a soul alone. 



53 



AT MIDNIGHT 

At midnight on the shoaling sands 
I stayed while the tide came in, 

I breathed the wind of rolling bands 
And the salt that lay within. 

No mortal stood on any shore 
No wraith of a kith or kind, — 

The waves rolled in, and many more 
Followed on and on behind. 

The clouds ribbed on in striding bars 
To the dull horizon's rim, — 

No moon shone out, nor guiding stars 
On the world unmarked and dim. 

No night-bird called, no panging cry 
From the landward side was hurled, 

But silence held the hanging sky 
That weighed on the wrinkled world. 

Across the sea the gleaming light 
Of a million souls shone wan 
54 



And moved away in dreaming night 
As an army marching on. 

I alone of the legion souls 
Enfleshed since the world began 

Stood where the shore-line region rolls 
And gazed on the sea-floor spian. 

At midnight on a thousand shores 
I beheld the flood-tides run, — 

All strifeless lay my prows and oars 
For the night and I were one. 



55 



DEEPS 

Down under the world a citadel lies 
Down deep in the depths of the sea 

Unseen are its walls by humankind eyes 
Deep down where the nether-slimes be. 

And monstrous forms through those corridors 
creep 

Down down to the bottoms of time 
And the ways are dark and reaches are deep 

In valleys of cold and of rime. 

High up in their skies strange monitors swim 

Up up till the light of the sun 
Some regioning where old twilights are dim 

And some where swift day-ripples run. 

For never the sun or planets have seen 

The ultimate gulfs of the sea, 
Or ever the moon the spaces between 

Those cavernous vasts and the free. 

Great peoples may rise and empires may go 
The mountains wear down and be gone 

50 



And yet may oceans lie vastly below 
As they lay at th' creatureless dawn. 

And far in silence of time and of night 

The dead of the ages shall lie 
Unmoved where they fall and stilled of affright 

While epochless eons pass by. 

Down under the world a labyrinth lies 
Down under the darkness and ooze, 

And never the deeps shall bare to the skies 
Till th' Maker of Eons shall choose. 



57 



SEA-GRAVE 

All silently the singer sleeps 
In the grave-sands by the sea, 
All fearlessly the wave-wind weeps 
On dunes of the sleepless sea. 

All drearily the storm-birds cry 
By the sand-whipped whistling sea. 
All startlingly the beach-specks fly 
At night to the frightless sea. 

All ceaselessly the pulsing wave 
Rolls the stones in th' froth-edged sea. 
And night and day the drifted grave 
Lies lone by the soulless sea. 

All troublessly the beach-worn wrack 
Rests white by the bleaching sea. 
But never comes the spirit back 
To its corse by th' prayerless sea. 



58 



MIRACLE 

Yesterday the twig was brown and bare; 
To-day the glint of green is there 
To-morrow will be leaflets spare; 
I know no thing so wondrous fair 
No miracle so strangely rare. 

I wonder what will next be there! 



59 



COLUMBINE 

Columbine 
What doest thou here 
Upon this chine 
Of rock-cliff sheer? 

Above my head 
Thou standest there 
Without a shred 
Of soil to bear 
Thy herbage up 
Or a cup 
To hold a bit 
To water it. 

And yet 
And yet 
In bloom beset 
And full of green 
Straight and serene 

Thou call'st the bees and humming-birds 
And I but wonder without words. 
60 



Columbine 

What kith is thine? 

Doth the rock burst into bloom 

So the bees seek its perfume? 

Is there somewhere in its breast 

A spirit moving without rest 

That doth fabricate 

This wall of slate 

Into forms so complicate 

That but a breath 

Would bring death 

They are so frail 

So thinly frail? 

Old alchemy 

They say to me 

Is dead long years ago; 

If that be so 

Then is the mystery 

But deeper still 

And I ponder as I will. 

But, Columbine 
(Marvel mine 
Upon thy chink) 
I must think 
Thou art alchemist; 
61 



No analyst 

Can half explain 

What doth attain, — 

A quickened thing drawn from a stone 

With stems and buds and seed-pods grown 

Seemly flowers with filaments therein 

And pearling tubes with nectar in 

Leaflets modelled tenderly 

Rainbow hues 

Winds and dews 

And the spring's transparency 

All in sweetest unity. 

A wall of rock 
A seed 

No noise nor strife: 
Thou dost unlock 
A wonder-lead 
And a flush of life 
Springs speedily; — 
How such things as this may be 
Is the miracle 
Perpetual, 

And I need not marvel any more 
At what the earth yet holds In store. 
62 



Ah, the wonder that has run 
That some sweet alchemy has won- 
Kissed together stone and sun! 

O Columbine 

The world is thine! 



63 



CAMPANULA 

There is a ferny dell I know 
Where spiry stalks of harebell grow. 
It is a little cool retreat 
Of bosky scents and airs complete. 
There is a maze of fragile stems 
That hang their pods above the hems 
Of mossy fountains crystal clear 
'Mongst webby threads of gossamere 
And filmy tints of green and blue 
A-strung in beads of fragrant dew. 
A tiny stroke the blue-bell rings 
As on its slender cord it swings, 
And if you listen long and well 
You'll hear the music in the bell. 

And often when IVe toiled with men 
Or passed my day with plans and pen 
Or fled afar on starry seas, 
I join the camp of moths and bees 
And wander by the minty pools 
To sedge and fern and campanules. 
And then I lie on twig and grass 
And watch the slimsy creatures pass, 

64 



And find the little folk that dwells 
So deep inside the azure bells 
I wonder how they come and go. 
And as I listen long and low 
I catch the cadence of a note 
Astir within the petal throat, 
I hear a tiny octave played 
And slender music, crystal-rayed. 

There are two worlds that I know full well- 
The world of men and the petal bell. 



65 



APPLE-BLOW 

It fell 

(I know well) 

On a day 

In the May 

When spring was lush 

And the thrush 

And the thrush 

Sang free, 

That an apple-tree 

To its tense buds drew 

The spice of the dew 

The slant of the rain 

The lilt of the lane 

Where fresh meadows run 

The pith of the sun 

The essence compressed 

In wind of the West 

The tremor awhir 

The fragrance astir 

The tang of new fields 

The memories of wealds 

We knew long ago 

The call of the crow 

66 



The boast of the frog 
In his bursting bog 
The mumble of rills 
The fetch of far hills 
And spaces that lie 
In blue of the sky- 
Beyond the white moon 
In heats of the noon, — 
Till it burst 
Till it burst 
Of its leaven dispersed 
And the yearn of the pain 
That it could not contain. 

So it fell 
(As I tell) 
On a lusting day 
In the heart of the May 
That an apple-tree sound 
Was burst of the sun and the lift of 
the ground. 



67 



MIGHTY LEAF 

A BRAZEN pageant passed up the street 
And all the people rushed to see it; 
There was bugle blare, and rolling thrums 
Of throbbing horns and the booming drums, 
Emblazoned heralds, the fanfare's greet. 
Resplendent robes, and the measured beat 
And mighty roar of a thousand feet 
Like victor's march to his conquer-seat. 

The pageant passed; and a dead leaf fell 
Slowly and slowly and clear and well 
A missive 'scaped from a cosmic cell 
A tone unloosed from a primal bell 
That bore on its way a wonder-spell: — 

A wonder-spell of mysteries 
Contained in patient leaves of trees 
In fungus spoor and spider's brood 
And all the living multitude; 
A wonder-spell of pictures fine 
In ev'ry land where sun doth shine 
And long distil the tonic wine 
In weaving palm and stolid pine, — 

63 



Of dreaming heights 

Where sky doth call 

Of fragrant nights 

When rain doth fall 

Of winding roads 

Where wind doth blow 

And shaded lodes 

Where stream doth flow; 

A wonder-spell of painless grief 

Within each falling silent leaf 

That holds all knowledge in its sheaf, — 

For if we knew if we knew 

Why it came and why it grew 

How the living spirit drew 

From sky and earth its channels through, 

We should know we should know 

Why things are so 

The meanings of the hidden years 

And all the music of the spheres. 

A pageant proud rolled its barren swell 
While a mighty leaf to the greensward fell. 



69 



WHITE CLOVER 

A VAGRANT plant to my garden came 
And escaped the workman^s hoe, 

He knew it not by the leaf or name 
So he let it stay and grow. 

It grew full well in the garden mould 
And covered a space yard-wide; 

He watched the honey-white heads unfold 
And pointed them out with pride. 

Many a weed in the garden lot 

Were fair as the clover blow 
If only its name were all forgot 

And ^twere giv'n its chance to grow. 



70 



APPLE-YEAR 

My last winter apple I ate today. 

Shapely and stout in their modelled skins 

Securely packed in my cellar bins 
Two dozen good kinds of apple-spheres lay. 

And today I went to my orchard trees 
And picked me the jfirst-ripe yellow fruits 
That hung far out on the swinging shoots 

In summer suns and the wonder-day breeze. 

And thereby it was that the two years met 

Deep in the heart of the ripe July 

When the wheat was shocked and streams were 
dry; 
And weather of winter stayed with me yet. 

For I planted these orchard trees myself 
On hillside slopes that belong to me 
Where visions are wide and winds are free 

That all the round year might come to my shelf. 

And there on my shelves the white winter through 
Pippin and Newtown, Rambo and Spy, 

71 



Greening and Swaar and Spitzenburg lie 
With memories tense of sun and the dew. 

They bring the great fields and the fence-rows 
here, 
The ground-bird's nest and the cow-bell's stroke 
The tent-worm's web and the night-fire's smoke 

And smell of the smartweed through all the year. 

They bring me the days when the ground was 
turned, 
When the trees were pruned and tilled and 

sprayed, 
When the sprouts were cut and grafts were made, 
When fields were cleaned and the brush-wood piles 
burned. 

And then the full days of the ripe months call 
For Jefferis, Dyer and Early Joe 
Chenango, Mother, Sweet Bough and Snow 

That hold the pith of high summer and fall. 

All a-sprightly and tart the crisp flesh breaks 
And the juices run cordial and fine 
Where the odors and acids combine 

And lie in the cells till essence awakes. 

I taste of the wilds and the blowing rain 
And I taste of the frost and the skies; 

72 



Condensed they lie in the apple guise 
And then escape and restore me again. 

So every day all the old years end 

And so every day they begin; 

So every day the winds come in 
And so every day the twelve-months blend. 



73 



PENTHORUM 

Ditch-crop, mute ditch-crop, stolid weed of the 

swale 
I pause at the roadside to read me your tale. 

I passed by this way in the lush of the spring 
When bluebirds and robins were free on the wing, 
When cowslips were bursting, and fresh spears of 

grass 
Were mirrored through pondlets as deep as a 

glass. 
When tadpoles were hatching, and roadsides were 

clean 
With freshness of showers and riot of green. 
But there though I lingered by furrow and trail 
Discovered you not in the grass or the swale. 

But later I come when deep ditches are dry 
When tadpoles are vanished and dead grasses lie, 
And here you are growing in dust and in heat 
Unseen and unsought, yet a spawn of the street; 
And you challenge my mood in resistless avail 
Till I sit on the bank while you tell me your tale. 

74 



No mystery I hold, no secrets embrace 
Except that I thrive in my own time and place; 
There are broods of September, blossoms of May, 
But I am the weed of the dead summer day; 
I express stale ditches, the humble, the plain. 
Give eyes to the wallow, the mud, and the stain; 
Each range has its spirit and mine is the swale, — 
The quick they may find me: and this is my tale. 



75 



PRAYER 

How sweet the world at sunrise was 
How fresh the breezes lay 
How joyously the song-birds prayed 
To herald in my day! 



76 



HERMIT THRUSH 

Miles away are street and town, 

The sun is down, 

In deep cloisters of the wood 

Moist airs faintly understood 

Settle in the chaplets of the hill. 

The leaves are still, 

The heart beats loud 

Amongst the crowd 

Of mossy monitors, — 

When clear a-down the corridors 

Nor near or far 

Drops a flute-note from a star — 

Hush! 

It is the thrush! 



77 



YELLOW-BIRD 

Yellow-bird and yellow-bird, you and I 
Were friends and good friends in the days gone by — 
We teetered away so high up and high 
Upward and downward out under the sky. 
Ka-ehee-ka-ka-kee, ka-chee-ka-ka-kee 
The meadows and meadows for you and for me. 

Often and oft in the blue summer day 
Long have I lain on the wagons of hay 
And followed you bounding Vay and away 
Till my soul and soul no longer could stay. 
Ka-chee-ka-ka-kee, ka-chee-ka-ka-kee 
The sky and the sky is unhampered and free. 

Slowly and slow in the midsummer's rest 
In sun of the east and heats of the west 
IVe tiptoed away in wonder-bound quest 
To your sky-tinged eggs and thistle-down nest. 
Ka-chee-ka-ka-kee, ka-chee-ka-ka-kee 
There are none so ready and ready as we. 

Copse-land and garden in winter and late 

I sight you in crews of gray-brown and slate — 

78 



And May-month and June in prouder estate 
All golden and jet with a gray-brown mate. 
Ka-chee-ka-ka-kee, ka-chee-ka-ka-kee 
I wonder and wonder what kith you may be. 

Days-end and days-end and closing of gloam 
Stilled heights of far sky and clouds white as foam 
I lie on my back and under the dome 
You twinkle your wings and drop away home. 
Ka-chee-ka-ka-kee, ka-chee-ka-ka-kee 
The night and the night and we ever are three. 

Yellow-bird and yellow-bird, you and I 
Still are friends and friends as the days go by 
And away we gallop so high and high 
From tree-top to tree-top under the sky. 
Ka-chee-ka-ka-kee, ka-chee-ka-ka-kee 
I fly and I fly to the hills and the sea. 



79 



HORIZON 

Lift me out of my laboring day 

Lift me up to the blue and away 

And let me discover my own horizon line, — 

Then drop me back to my work and play 

And the far ends of the world in my day shall shine. 



80 



WISHFUL TRAVELLER 

I SAILED upon the ocean waste 

Full many days and more 

And found at length my footsteps placed 

Upon a rippled shore; 

I asked not what the place might be 

Nor who its people were 

But was content if I might see 

As a wishful traveller. 

Full many days I bided there 

The stranger scenes among 

Nor found acquaintance anywhere 

Or one familiar tongue; 

I learned their ways as day by day 

I saw them come and go, 

A goodly folk and calm were they 

With youthful overflow. 

I know not where that landing was 
I know not who those people were; 
I moved among them there because 
I was a wishful traveller. 



81 



THE GREAT HIGH-ROADS 

I WENT one day by the woodland shore 
And I went one day on the lea, 

I went one day in the tempest's pour 
And I went one day by the sea. 

I went one day on the mountain height 
And I went in the valleys good, 

I went one time in the headlong night 
And I went one time in the wood. 

And I went one day on the rising road 
And walked with the upward sun, 

And I went one day with a toilsome load 
And walked till the day was done. 

And everywhere that I have gone 

Some travelling soul has been 
And walked with me in the day and dawn 

And the two strange souls were kin. 

One comes out from a humble home 

And one comes out the lane, 
One comes out from a gilded dome 

82 



And one comes back from Spain; 
One comes out with a hopeful stride 

And one comes out with pain, 
One looks out to the free-scapes wide 

And one looks out for gain. 

And on they go down the tireless paths 
That lead to the world's one end, 

And on they go with their joys and wraths 
And on till the pathways blend. 

And one and two as I pass on 

Turn in to my forward way 
And walk a space, and then anon 

Turn off to the goalless day. 

In stranger lands beyond the sea 

With a speech I could not know 
Some kindred soul has walked with me 

Where the tireless pathways go; 
High on tops of the rounding downs 

And shores of the singing bays 
Far in streets of the talking towns 

We have walked our speechless ways. 

And these are the ceaseless kindred souls 
That I meet on life's highway, — 

We meet and touch and they reach their goals 
And I bid them all Good-Day, 

83 



And on I go to my sun-down tours 

And on to the rock-ledge kills, 
And on I go to the sleeping moors 

And on to the wind-voiced hills; 

And on I go to the palm-hut isles 

That rise in the southward seas. 
And on I go to the snow-long miles 

And on till the wood-lakes freeze; 
And on I go to the west and east 

And on to the south and north. 
And on I go with the waif and priest 

And go with my road-mates forth. 

All my path-mates go where they are set 

And I never see them more, 
But it is enough that we have met 

Afoot on the earth-round shore. 

And I dream the dreams of the age-long strife 

As I walk by men's abodes 
And I spin them all on the looms of life 

Away on the world's high-roads. 



84 



ONE 

Over the prairies boundlessly 

As if ^twere over the sea 
Roll of the sward unendingly 

Ripe sun where the billows be, 

Wind of grass and of popple-leaves 

The gold of the compass-blow 
Windmill vane by the clustered eaves 

Raw weeds in the coulee-flow. 
Standing corn for every one 

The woodlots housed and square 
The rivers warm that broadly run 

And farm-lands stoutly aware. 
The far right roads and single sky 

Fences that scant'ly divide 
The common lot when traders buy 

And hail of the harvest-tide, — 

Over the prairies' long commands 

To every house we see 
Over the earth's great level lands 

My brothers and I go free. 



85 



MARVEL 

Ah, the wonders I have seen 

At dawn and sunset and between! 

The ocean beach on wild midnights 

Deep steaming swamps and northern bights 

The cirrhus clouds in high moonlights 

The magic calm of tropic seas 

The nameless sails at distant quays 

The long long walks on lonely strands 

Dead vacantness of desert lands 

The constellations in new skies 

The rounding landscape's million dyes 

The fling of frost on country side 

The burning stacks on prairies wide 

Surpassing peace of autumn leaves 

Ten thousand stooks of harvest sheaves 

The ruddy camp-fire's holy zest 

Howbe the catbird builds its nest 

And how the palm-tree rears its crest 

The sanctity of falling snow 

The lull before the thunder-blow 

The sacred naves of forests old 

Strange rivers bearing freights untold 

86 



Serenity of mountain peaks 
The youthful worlds in rolling creeks 
The glacier gleams on headlands far 
Deep chambered caves and calcic spar 
The iceberg's crystal citadels 
And all the people in the towns 
In all the sleeping virgin towns 
And all the partings and farewells, — 
Oh the spaces and the sweep 
Of the zenith and the deep! 

Ah, the marvels I have seen 

At gloam and sunrise and between ! 



87 



DESERT 

Gray and dun is the desert 
Outstretching God only knows where, 
Burning tense and fierce like a brazier 
And dead as the bodiless air; 
Worn and ag'd is the silence 
That broodeth on snags dipt and sere. 
The wind is its shifting handmaiden 
That drifteth the undertone here; 
Sharp and hard are the shadows 
That lie beneath carcass and stone 
Where harbor the snake and the lizard 
That crawl to their caverns alone; 
High and far are the colors 
Gold sands to the summits gray-blue 
Scarf-face and land-sweeps in their pigments 
A-spread in the wastages through; 
Grim and gaunt are the titans 
Rock-forms and dead stocks on the sands 
Great ghosts of the stark arid spaces 
That beckon with motionless hands; 
Clear and clean are the night-hours 
Stilled star-lamps that gleam and are bold, 

88 



Dark shapes on the looming horizons 
Barbaric and simple and old. 

And God, He loveth the desert! — 
The masses that are steadfast and free 
And winds that come over the margins 
Are as winds that come over the sea — 
Over the voids and the forelands 
Stript down to their bare verities: 
The keen ultimate ranges are His, 



89 



SPARE ME ONE SWAMP 

Ho! ye ditchers, ye drainers, go ye slow 
Till I walk once more where the slough-creeks go. 
And steal to the place where bladderworts grow 
Softly out there on oozy old edges of swales. 

Just wait till I dash through the rim of trees 
And the rank raw weeds and beyond the breeze, 
To lily-quags reach, then half to my knees 
Plunge and plow the black puddles where the 
marsh-stench hales. 

Hold! preserve one spot where no furrow turns 
Where no garbage rots and no smoke-stack burns 
And no sign-board gapes, where no tramp sojourns 
When hounded and outcast from the primp city 
pales. 

Spare me yet one swamp where the marsh-hen 

breeds 
One deep old morass where the mink-brood feeds. 
One sweep of great bog where the cat-tail seeds 
Are shorn and snatched from their heads by the 
winter gales. 

90 



Reserve me one mire where the mud gives birth 
Of things that guard and strike, where fen-vines 

girth 
And sHme-pools steam, where the old savage earth 
Contests me, defies me when I push 'long the 
trails. 



91 



MT. TOM 

We tramped the ripe October wood 

Twixt saplings thick and tall; 
Long 'neath the shedding trees we stood 

And watched the dead leaves fall; 
And long we stayed, as lovers should. 

To hear the blue-jay's call. 

On smooth gray rocks the lichens spread — 

We counted near a score; 
The mosses yielded 'neath our tread 

And still their capsules bore; 
The aster tops were torn and dead 

Where autumn winds were frore. 

We sat upon the scuffling leaves 

And pried the chestnut burs; 
We traced the strands the wood-vine weaves 

Where no intruder stirs; 
We found the trails the wood receives 

Like ancient foresters. 

High nimbus clouds in strata lay 
Along the arching sky 

92 



And scuds of rain aslant and gray 

Shot through the forest dry. — 
In gentle peace the russet day 

SHpt on, we knew not why. 

Then quick from top of a beetling crest 

And the world beneath us lay 
With valleys wide to the east and west 

And the drifting smokes away. 

Outspread were tints of the quilted farms 

And glint of the winding roads 
And the river spread its silver arms 

By marts and the free abodes. 

And far in the great horizon's sweep 

We counted the pointing spires 
That stand where the shaded hamlets sleep 

High with hopes of men's desires. 

The hanging hills in a broken line 
Stretched on to the sunward skies, 

And to northward where the hills confine 
The Holyoke ranges rise. 

Old mountains grew and were worn to plains 

And the rivers sank their beds, 
Then the lavas thrust these ragged chains 

Where the ancient lowland spreads. 

93 



For the trap-squared rocks beneath our feet 

Revealed the upheaval prime 
When the mountain rose in stress and heat 

In some far triassic time. 

And thus have eons come and passed 

And timeless cycles sped, 
Old earth is scarred with changes vast 

Of hills and oceans fled; 
And what we know and love at last 

Are ages gone and dead. 



94 



SUMMONS 

Have you flung your arms and shouted 

till the forests answered back, 
Seen the footprints of the cougar or the 

black-bear's shambling track? 
Have you ridden mountain horses 

as they follow up the trails, 
Seen the court'sying water-ouzel and the 
scuddling of the quails? 
Then you come with me to Shasta 
Where the racing waters flow, 
Far behind the dome of Shasta 
Where no tourists ever go, 
In the forests deep at Shasta 
Where the mighty fir-trees grow. 

Have you smelled the pitch-knots burning 

as they snapple in the breeze, 
Have you seen the camp-smoke rising 

till it billows in the trees? 
Have you stretched full length and slumbered 

on the needles for a bed 
With the sun-flecks dancing on you 

thro' the tree-tops overhead? 

95 



Then we^U go to find the rivers 
Where they open to the sky 
Wade the oozy turbid rivers 
Where the water-bushes He, 
Feel the salmo in the rivers 
As it rises to the fly. 

Have you heard the boiHng waters 

when they bubble thro' the night, 
Felt the touch of roaming night-winds 

as they wander from the light? 
Have you breathed the wind of fir-trees 

in the silence of the wood 
With the night-damps closing round you 
where no human ever stood? 
Then you join me in the darkness 
Where the night is dense and deep. 
Stretching silent in the darkness 
When the wild beasts lie asleep 
Hear a startle in the darkness 
Where a panther makes a leap. 

Have you heard the rain-drops tinkle 

as they strike upon the leaves, 
Have you felt the fore-winds freshen 

when they whiffle in your sleeves? 
Have you sat beside the river 

when the rain begins to pour 
So you know the fragrant music 

that it makes along the shore? 

96 



Then we'll hasten to the weather 
Be it rain or sun or cloud, 
To the hazy purple weather 
And the dust-deeps that enshroud, 
To the free and open weather 
When the winds are wild and loud, 

Have you torn thro' thorny thickets, 

walked a ten-mile at a stage, 
Floated down the falling rivers 
past the sedge and saxifrage? 
Have you waited at the deer-licks 

for the coming of the game? 
Have you bivouacked in the forest 
till youVe clean forgot your name? 
Then we'll off into the forests 
Where the bubbling waters run, 
Shout our challenge in the forests 
At the rising of the sun. 
Build our night-fires in the forests 
When the careless day is done. 



97 



YONDER 

I AM off into the far north country 
Off beyond the last name on the map 
Farther than the new prospected front re- 
Gardless of the day or raw mishap. 

I am going 

Where the miknown winds are blowing 

And the unnamed streams are flowing 

Flowing where no yawl or lugger ever ran 

I am going where the beasts have never smelt a 

man — 
Out upon the earth where no foot has been before 
Where all ways are ways of conquest and there is 

no atlased shore 
To the earth that knows no cities, or ever heard of 

house or road 
Of book or place or preaching or historic episode 
Just to be for once together 
With the unrecorded weather 
And things that live because they live 
Nor care why they are thus and so 
Where there is no gain to give 
And no trails to lead where I would go 
Where a soul may search and wander 
On the peaks and plains of Yonder 

98 



And make no note or record of the regions wonder- 

miled 
So the man who cometh after shall find them his 

and undefiled; — 
Glad to live before all the earth is charted 
And the race becomes so soft and timid-hearted 
That no man dare sleep one league from any other 
Or relieve the turgid crowd by going out from one 

another, 
Glad that in some distance 
Nature sets resistance 

To the barter and the ravage and the plow 
That some things are well beyond us everyhow — 
Some reach beyond the timber and the mines 
Some blank within the sea confines 
Some silence where the soul upshrines 
Somewheres no man can steal and plunder 
As far and fresh as wind and thunder 
And the caverns deep down under, 
The untouched tops of mountains 
The unpolluted fountains 
In the farthest wildernesses 
The virginal recesses 

Wherefrom the race may draw its power 
To stand complete within its hour. 

I'm off beyond the borders beneath a homeless sky 
Out into the largeness where the background spaces 
lie. 

99 



MOTHER MUD 

Ye roils of mud! On slag and road 
On wallowed track and slipping yard 
Down millioned years of slash and goad. 
Ye be the earth's first honor-guard. 

Clean scurf and rain, by heaven mixed 
Forth-destined when the orb was flung — 
Within the quick'ning sludge transfixed 
Were all the songs the years have sung. 

No sprout of earth, no winnowed soul 
No singing sphere, no god of man 
Except from out your brooding shoal 
Had ever winged their master-span. 

Flush sloughs of mud! In fragrant dawn 
In leaping spring and garnered fall 
I tribute bring to breed and brawn 
Nor dare defile one mire withal. 

Flow down ye rains to earth far-long 
Rise up ye lands to wind and rift, 

100 



When ye be strong then all be strong — 
Full-free of doubt and stain and shrift. 

For from the sleeeh the strong ones come; 
And ev'ry bird and hoof and bud 
In godly part and sacred sum 
Proclaim the kinship of the mud. 



101 



HANDS 

Some hands go to the manicure 
To primp and polish and shine 
Some hands go to the velvet lure 
And some to the jewel shrine; 
But these are the hands that hold the plow 
The self same hands as of old and now; — 
They are the hands that court'sy and perk 
But these are the hands that do the work. 

Some hands hap on a hazard-green 
And some with a shuffled pack 
Some hands thrum on a tambourine 
And some hang limpsy and lack; 
But these are the hands that dig and drain 
The self same hands that gather the grain ;- 
They are the hands that pleasure and shirk 
But these are the hands that do the work. 

Some hands spurn the rubble and clods 
To clutch at the golden stairs 
Some hands reach for the rainbow gods 
On the pampered thoroughfares; 

102 



But these are the hands that wield the helve 
The self same kind in the chosen Twelve; — 
They are the hands that surfeit and irk 
But these are the hands that do the work. 



103 



THE SIGNS OF LIFE 

Ha, ye dead thing upon the ground 
How few of ye IVe ever found 
And I have tramped it far and wide 
By wood and wash and ripple-side! 

And often have I wondered where 

The bodies of the dead misfare, — 

Of all the multitudes of those 

The variegated life compose 

Of field and sea and air and earth 

Throughout the planet's spacious girth. 

Some pass life's full allotted span; 
On some there is the 'scapeless ban 
That takes them early to the pit — 
Where be the graves of the unfit? 

But soon or late the day is sped 
And strong and weak alike are dead, 
They meet the summons where they are 
And ev'ry death is singular; 
And yet these millions pass unseen 
And leave scant trace to intervene. 
104 



The gaps fill in; the earth is rife 
With energy that mastereth; — 
The upward signs of birth and life 
Are greater than the signs of death. 



105 



FARMER 

I HOE and I plow 
I plow and I hoe 
And the wind drives over the main. 

I mow and I plant 
I plant and I mow 
While the sun burns hot on the plain, 

I sow and I reap 
I reap and I sow 
And I gather the wind with the grain. 

I go and I come 
I come and I go 
In the calm and the storm and the rain, 



106 



FARMER'S CHALLENGE 

Blow ye winds and lay on ye storms 
And come ye pests in rabble swarms 
And fall ye blights in legion forms — 
I am here: I surrender not 
Nor yield my place one piece or jot; — 

For these are my lands 

And these are my hands 
And I am hone of the folk that resistlessly stands. 

The blood of old plowmen runs hard in my arm 
Of axemen and yeomen and battlemen all 
Who fought and who flinched not by marish or wall 
Who met the bold day and chased ev^ry alarm; 
My fatherkind sleep, but I hear the old call 
And fight the hot battle by forge and by farm; — 

For these are my lands 

And these are my hands 
And I am bone of the folk that resistlessly stands. 



107 



I PLOW 

Quick smell of the earth, I am come once more 
To the feel of soil and the sky before 
To tang of the ditch and whift of the bough 
With stamp of my team and grip of my plow. 

I am blowing again with wind and rain 

I am falling with frost and snow 
Yearning once more with the fields that have lain 

Through the months of the drought and flow, — 
You shall hear the clank of my plow and chain 

Where my hard-harnessed horses throw 
And follow the welts that I rip in twain 

As I turn up the lands below. 

Jangle and crunch in the far-windy morn 

Cut and grind through the singing sod 
Stone and high-hummock and thistle and thorn 

Root and stubble and rolling clod 
Puddles that break into furrows foreshorn 

Helm of the handles, plow-point's prod, — 
With hale of great harvests my bouts are borne 

Ov'r the vasts of the glebes of God. 

108 



Mete to the mark are my furrows full-set 
Hard with the muscle and marrow and sweat 
Straightforth is the way and the fields are rife 
High over the heights of the hills of life. 



109 



PLOW-BOY 

Tramp, tramp, 

Thrust the share along the row — 

Tramp, tramp, 

Feel the horses pull and go I 

Ho, oho 

The rain and snow 

And winds a-blowl 

Halt, halt, 

Turn the corner, keep the hold — 

Go, go, 

Plunge the point into the mould! 

Ho, oho 

'Cross the ends, oh ye who know — 

Call of fowl and flight of crow I 

Tramp, tramp. 

Keep the share straight to the row — 

Tramp, tramp. 

How the horses pull and go! 

Ho, oho 

Summers come and autumns flow — 

How the grain will burst and grow! 



110 



HERE 

Where I shall fall there let me lie, 
From end to end the earth is mine 
For kin with me are land and sky 
And ev'ry spot is home benign. 



Ill 



YOUNG FARMER 

He shall go out to the far green hills 
And he shall go out on the mains 

He shall go north 'long the rock-bound kills 
And he shall go south on the plains. 

He shall go out to the desert reach 
Where the dead winds gather the sands. 

He shall go on where the waters breach 
Far down in their weltering lands. 

He shall go forth in the winter's rage 

And away in the tropic fire 
And there he shall stand; nor fame nor wage 

Shall defeat him of his desire. 

For he shall build on the good stout earth 
That he takes from the hand of God, 

And grip his place with a free man's girth 
And shall strike his fires from the clod. 

No nature-doubts shall haunt him to fear, 
Storm and calm shall he walk with her — 

112 



Together joined in the rolling year 
Where elemental pulses stir. 

Temples shall rise on the land he smites 
Visions turn with his good plow-beam, 

For steadfastly on through days and nights 
There shall rest on his face the Dream. 



113 



JOHN 

Come, John of the Roadside, stout John of the Farm 
For long have ye labored and your good right arm 
Still hath its cunning, and high harvests and goods 
Have come from your orchards and grown from 

your woods; 
YeVe earned a fair respite and iBtting abode 
Out from the traffic and far back from the road, — 
Go build ye a mansion with comforts polite 
Away up on the crest of the grand great height. 

Nay, long have I housed where the free road is 

laid 
And here is the place where men travel and trade; 
Long out to the open and in to the mart 
Old Jack with his wagon and Tom with his cart 
And men far afoot and the children to school 
And the summer's gray dust and winter's cold pool 
And posies that blow in the grass of the spring 
And hens strolling out and the bird on the wing 
Have hallowed this roadside; and outward it leads 
Unto all the round world and to all men's needs. 

114 



The dog trotting by would not know me or stop 
The traveller's hail would not reach my high top 
The thirsting road-team would not drink to its fill 
And weeds of the roadside would shrink from my 

hill; 
Long years have I followed the plow in its gird 
My cattle all know me and come at my word 
They know my gray coat when they see me come 

out 
They wait at the bars when dim dusk is about, 
And hard would they stare with their wondering 

eyes 
Should I stride down the hill in lofty disguise. 

No; here let me stay where my trees have grown 

big 
With the road and the well and lilac-bush twig 
And close on my soil where my house-gods may 

lie 
And my heart keep green to the folk that pass by. 



115 



TILE DRAIN 

Fak under the ground 
As men pass by 
Unseen and alone 
I silently lie. 

Under bottoms of springs 
And under the pools, 
^Neath slopes of long fields 
And under old stools 
Of bush and of brier, 
'Neath roots of the grass 
On hardlands and swale, 
I straightforwardly pass. 
I feel the cool earth 
And slow trickling streams, 
And roots of big trees 
That pry in my seams; 
And crawling things find 
When pursued by alarms 
A genial retreat 
As they hide in my arms. 
The soft summer showers 

116 



And long winter rains, 
The springtime that iSoods 
And the autumn that wanes, 
The tempests that rend 
With their sudden affright, 
They disquiet me not 
In the day or the night. 
Far down to the bank 
Of the streamlet I run 
And carry my freight 
To the drift and the sun; 
And oft to my mouth 
Do the yellow-birds come 
And drink to their fill 
When the stream is dumb. 
The cattle I hear 
As they move on the land. 
And the burrowing folk 
That build in the sand. 
When the plow-team tramps 
On the full crunching earth 
I feel the hard thrusts 
Of the first harvest birth; 
But the plowman thinks not 
That I lie down below 
And tireless prepare 
For the harvests to grow. 
And as seasons return 
All the pastures above 

117 



Respond to a touch 
That he knows not of. 

Years In and years on 

I rest in my bed 

And draw down the rains 

When the farmer is dead; 

And nothing I care 

That the people know not 

Whether I am 

Or where is my lot. 

All secrets I hold 

Of the dead and the live, 

For they all come at last 

To the soil where I strive. 

Calm and content 
I silently lie 
And carry my work 
As men pass by. 



118 



CHILD'S REALM 

A LITTLE child sat on the sloping strand 

Gazing at the flow and the free, 
Thrusting its feet into the golden sand, 

Playing with the waves and the sea. 

I snatched a weed that was tossed on the 
flood 

And unravelled its tangled skeins; 
And I traced the course of the fertile blood 

That lay deep in its meshed veins; 

I told how the stars are garnered in space. 
How the moon on its course is rolled; 

How the earth is hung in its ceaseless place 
As it whirls in its orbit old. 

The little child paused with its busy hands 

And gazed for a moment at me, 
Then it dropped again to its golden sands 

And played with the waves and the sea. 



119 



COUNTRY SCHOOL 

There certainly will come a day 
As men become simple and wise 
When schools will put their books away 
Till they train the hands and the eyes; 
Then the school from its heart will say 
In love of the winds and the skies: 

I teach 
The earth and soil 
To them that toil. 
The hill and fen 
To common men 

That live just here; 

The plants that ^grow. 
The winds that blow. 
The streams that run 
In rain and sun 

Throughout the year; 

The shop and mart 
The craft and art, 

120 



The men to-day 
The part they play 
In humble sphere; 

And then I lead 
Thro' wood and mead 
By bench and rod 
Out unto God 

With love and cheer. 
I teach 1 



121 



COUNTRY CHURCH 

In some great day 

The country church 

Will find its voice 
And it will say: 

I stand in the fields 
Where the wide earth yields 

Her bounties of fruit and of grain. 
Where the furrows turn 
Till the plowshares burn 

As they come round and round again; 
Where the workers pray 
With their tools all day 

In sunshine and shadow and rain. 

And I bid them tell 
Of the crops they sell 

And speak of the work they have done; 
I speed ev'ry man 
In his hope and plan 

And follow his day with the sun; 
And grasses and trees 
122 



The birds and the bees 

I know and I feel ev'ry one. 

And out of it all 
As the seasons fall 

I build my great temple alway; 
I point to the skies, 
But my footstone lies 

In commonplace work of the day; 
For I preach the worth 
Of the native earth, — 

To love and to work is to pray. 



123 



UTILITY 

In deepest wood 
A flow'ret stood 

^Neath unknown skies; 
Its petals bright 
Ne^er gave their light 

To human eyes. 

A wandering man 
'Neath learning's ban 

Espied the flower: 
''Ah, little swain 
Thy life were vain 

Until this hour/' 

But nature knew 
Of all that grew 

No thing is vain: 
The restless tease 
Of busy bees 

Had rendered gain. 
124 



As you and me, 
So flower and bee 

Hath life to give; 
Nor pride nor pelf. 
Each of itself 

Hath right to live. 



125 



GOODS 

I SAT at midnight in the woods 
When the darks were far and deep, 

When all my kin had housed their goods 
And had fallen dead asleep. 

A whisper moved above my ears 
As if slender rain-drops fell, — 

A feeling of a thousand years 
From the whence I could not tell. 

A something stirs within those woods 

A spirit remote and fine, — 
And all my kin may have their goods 

For the deep old glooms are mine. 



126 



SOWER AND SEER 

Full patiently the sower walked on his acres deep 
and clean 

And dropped his handfuls one by one for the har- 
vest full and green, 

Full punctually he tilled his lands and groomed 
his sleek-fed kine 

And frugally at sunrise and eve he dressed his 
yard and vine; 

When days were fair he thrust his plow and com- 
pelled his clicking drills 

And when wilding storms were loosed and raw he 
sped his barn-snug mills; 

And day by day the sun rose and set upon his cir- 
cling hills. 

Full forwardly the seer stood on the rim of circling 

hills 
Where trees were bent on the jagged cliffs and 

eagles dropped their quills 
With shimmering farm-lands far below and spires 

of roof-flecked vills; 

127 



Full eastwardly and westwardly all the sweeping 

earth lay prone 
And upwardly the fleecing clouds in a bondless 

sunlight shone; — 
All things beneath and all above were in webs of 

vision spun 
Till every part was as the whole and all the whole 

was one. 

The sower and the seer each 
Down life's unending way 
Held fast his single speech 
And lived his separate day. 

For one man cast his seed 
And sped the coupled hours. 
He stored his treasured meed 
And plucked his garden flow'rs. 

And one man stood alone 
Where all the world was his, 
All things that men have known 
And all that was and is. 

Alack, all ye that sow 
And alack, ye that see. 
No longer shall ye go 
All sepVate and unfree: 
128 



For one shall make far quests,- 
The other ^side him fare 
And come back from the crests 
With star-winds in his hair. 



129 



IT RAINED 

"Heavy rains made the elaborate decorations present 
bedraggled appearance." 

A KING was crowned upon his throne, 
But the great rains they knew it not 
The winds went on their ways alone 
Nor the stars ever saw the spot. 

But glad the ready farm-lands were 
When the gray whelming rain-floods fell 
And all the incense and the myrrh 
Lay in the magic of their spell. 

Nor winds nor rains know fame or niche, 
Nor pause to profit those who play 
With fribbling gew-gaws of the rich 
Or ape the pomps of yesterday. 

The winds and rains hold endless days 
Nor touched of flaunt or shibboleth, 
The strong is he who walks their ways — 
No pomp came out of Nazareth. 

Old valors rise in silent grass 
Upon the landsman's simple glebes 

130 



But gloried stones unheeded pass 
To wastes of Baalbek and of Thebes. 

Deep in the backgrounds they are set 
These makers of the thrones and kings, 
Old earth will give them forecast yet 
And lift their Stubbled Years on wings. 

The plowman walks his furrowed quest 
With wind and rain from sea to sea — 
What bears he there upon his breast? — 
He bears the Seals of Destiny. 



131 



VESPER 

The sun has sunk to rest. 

I am one day nearer to the West. 



132 



DAYBREAK 

Have you risen at the daybreak 
When the world is cool and free 
And the dawn comes up triumphant 
Like the freshness of the sea? 

Have you felt the nature kinship 
As you go in fields alone 
When the first new light is breaking 
And the world is all your own? 

Have you heard the first bird calling 
From the passing of the night 
When the dew is on the grass-land 
And the corn-tops feel the light? 

Have you walked through fog-filled hollows 

By dim pathways soft and damp 

Ere the pasture-lying cattle 

On their fields had broken camp? 

Have you known the youthful laughter 
Of the brook upon its bed 

133 



While the shadows of the darkness 
On its scented pools are spread? 

Have you seen the wild things feeding 
In the sun-break and the shade 
Living each his mode and habit 
When there's none to make afraid? 

Have you smelt the tonic fragrance 
When the morning airs distil 
And you spread your chest and breathe it 
Till it sends your nerves athrill? 

So the dawn is rousing 
Rousing bird and bee, 
Thro' the ages calling 
Calling you and me; 

Yet we still are sleeping 
Sleeping with our ills, 
While the world is waking 
Waking on the hills; 

Spending hours at midnights 
Making mimic day, 
Longing for amusement 
Burning life away; 

For we yet are children 
Playing with our toys, 

134 



Grasping at the fire-lights 
Humored by the noise. 

But I think I see the future 
In the distance where it Hes 
Like a vision of the morning 
Stretching out beneath the skies; 

Nor mankind will know its mission 
Nor its doubts will be withdrawn 
Nor the race will be perfected 
Till it rises with the dawn. 



135 



HILL-PATHS 

Away over the hills as the train speeds by 

I trace the long paths that lead out to the sky. 

With a staff in my hand and bared to the breeze 
I will mount ev'ry path and mightily seize 
The roots of the bushes and sharps of the rocks 
And brush of the pines on their tempested stocks, 
I will strike knee-deep through the hollows of mud 
That pour on the hillsides their procreate flood, 
Rise over high meadows where eagles swing free 
And vision runs outward on rivers and sea, 
Pass stones of old camp-cairns with embers and 

cinds 
And bunches of blossoms all wild with the winds. 

I will follow them out to their tenuous heights 
Till clouds sink away 'neath the limitless lights 
For long have I wondered what scenes I shall find 
When houses and valleys are all left behind 
And downward I look on the world and its bond 
While I tramp to the hills that lie still beyond. 

From snows of the arctic to straight tropic sun 
These paths of the mountains all upwardly run, — 

136 



Clean grooves of old tracks of the stones and the 

rains 
That mark out the routes 'twixt the clouds and 

the plains; 
And I never can see the ends or the bound 
But I know that they lead to the whole world 

round 
And ever I wait for the day and the time 
When over their crests I shall ardently climb 
And on the last summit shall perfectly hear 
The space-drifted music that rolls round the sphere. 

Yet ever and ever do the days speed by 

And draw me away from my hills and the sky. 

But time cometh on when my soul shall be freed 

And far beyond limits of days I will lead — 

A shape disengaged on this planet abide 

As loose as the storms and as far as the tide 

As free as a wave-beat and ripple of rills 

An echo of wood-calls, a voice of the hills — 

I will join the high winds that boundlessly roam 

And walk the long paths on the hills of my home. 



137 



THE FARTHERMOST HILLS 

Come over the plains to the hilltops high 
Come over, come over and rest; 
Stay not on the plains where soft zephyrs lie 
But come to the heights where the clouds sweep by 
And the world-round gales through the heavens 

fly- 
Come over, come over and rest. 

There's wonder-strong music where the storms 

sweep by 
Where the forests are rent and the earth-woes cry. 
There's a grand old song where things suffer and 

die 
And the struggle is on 'twixt the earth and sky; 
Escape your calm levels and on to the West, 
Come out with your cares to the uttermost crest — 
Come over, come over and rest. 



138 



MY PURPLE HILLS 

Far over the valley are purple hills 

Soft asleep in a twilight of haze. 
I think there are fountains and falling rills 

And aisles a-dream in the forest ways; 
I think there are birds with a song that thrills 

And winds that roam in the quiet days. 

But the space between has a deep morass 
With tangles and bogs that I fear to pass; 
There are quaking hollows and sinking sands 
And white burning suns on the sterile lands; 
There are bottomless streams with luckless 

shores 
And hedges of briers on the log-piled floors; 
Blind depths I must cross; and cliffs I must 

scale 
That stand like walls in the dread intervale. 

Yet I think that I see the falling rills 

In the depths of the twilight bar, 
And I listen to catch the song that thrills 

Falling down from the aisles afar; — 
I am journeying on to my purple hills, 

And over the hills is a star. 



139 



BEACON 

My friend upon the crooking road 
Saw never light upon the crest, 

He tried to bear his weighted load 
By page and precept and behest. 

Poor soul! He went but little spell 
At ev^ry turn an ending was, 

The maxims and the mottoes fell 
And empty were the books and laws. 

* * * 

There was a light upon the hill 
It led me through the welter-way. 

In all the darks I saw it still 
Its gleam upbore me in the gray. 

And when the flame went out at last 
I knew its mem'ry in the dark, 

And still it led me as I passed 
On-beck'ning by its fadeless spark. 



140 



OUT 

Upon a twig a tiny gall 

One day in early spring 

A pinhole pierced the crusted wall 

Whence life had taken wing. 

I cut across the last-year globe 

And found the cell inside 

Whence hope had fled its hardened robe 

For distance blue and wide. — 

The wind was far that April day 

By woods and freshet sounds 

A bee flew by upon its way 

From out its winter bounds. 



141 



NEW MOON 

Twilight twilight of the west 

Sky-lines fading into rest 

Cloud-bars lying far and slight 

Shadows sinking into night, — 

O moon, ye moon, so faint and still 

Hanging hanging as ye will 

Low along the western sky 

Far and far and yet so nigh 

A finger's breadth within the sheen 

And silent shoreless vasts between — 

Thy aching heart long ages lost 

And clear and calm as film of frost 

Ye know no longer strain or stress 

All passionless and passionless. 

O moon, ye moon, ye day-old moon 
That swims within the twilight swoon 
So fragile fragile in the gleam 
A thing unreal as in a dream, 
How doth it seem so thin to be 
So bodiless and utter free? 
And dost thou know that thou art dead 
Know that thou hast no fear or dread? 
142 



And dost thou take of time no heed 
As termless eons onward speed? 
And why and why may I not reach 
Across the slender silent breach 
Between us here 
Since the way is clear? 

An orbed shape thou dost contain 

A veiled vacuous diaphane 

Within the hollow of thy bowl — 

Is it the shimmer of a soul? 

What mystery 

Hangs within thy pale intensity 

Thy cold serenity 

O twilight moon, crescent-lipped 
Phantom moon, ether-tipped 
Haunted moon, spirit-dipped! 

O moon, ye moon, nor souls nor men 
Know why or how or whence or when 
Ye sprang from out the primal strain 
Or when shall pass to naught again. 



143 



SPIRIT 

'TwAS far away- 
Near Hudson's Bay. 

There a lone hut stood 
By a whitened wood 
With the door a-yawn 
And the chimney gone. 
And nobody knows 
In that realm of snows 
Who made it or why 
In the years passed by 
Nor his kind or race 
In that friendless place, 
Or were children born 
On the shores forlorn 
And whither they went 
When their time was spent, 
Or who came that way 
On some rare great day 
And gave to them word 
Of news he had heard 
On the long long track 
To the North and back; 

144 



But yet have they left of their spirit there 
And little brown twigs are thinly aware 
Away on the trail of the voyageur 
In the far-oflF land of the lonely fir. 

It was far away 
Toward Hudson's Bay. 



145 



REST 

Gently comes the eventide, 
Gently on the countryside 

Spreads the twiHght peace; 
Darkness gathers deep and wide 
Deep and far and simplified 

With the day's release; 
Close and sound the earthlings hide,- 
I know calmly they abide 

In the night's surcease. 



146 



SKEIN 

Ah sweet is the wind at the eventide 
And sweet is the wind when the sun has died 
And sweet is the wind when the hours subside 
And sweet is the sleep when the night comes on; 

Ah fresh is the wind when the night is run 
And fresh is the wind at the rising sun 
And fresh is the wind when the hours are spun 
And fresh is the face when the Hght comes on; 

Ah stout is the woof of the shuttling wind 
And stout is the warp of the soul abscind 
And stout is the skein of the life fuU-spinned 
And stout is the weft when the smite comes on. 



147 



SHE SANG 

"The single singer with a melodious and untrilled strain is 
not much heard now. The best singing I hear is now and 
then out among the folk, — a simple direct song as plain and 
sweet as a bird^s note." 



She sang 

She sang as the bird sings, 

TTpr vnipp hsiA ta.kpn ■winorq* 



She sang 

one sang cto i<jj.\^ il»xxv^ ohx^o, 

Her voice had taken wings: 

It rang 

Beyond the multitudes of things. 

She sang at morn, at noon, at night, 
She sang completely and forthright, 
A clear and simple easy strain 
That once you heard would come again. 



I heard it echo down the wood 
The thrush, the veery understood; 
I caught it in the lily-bell 
I heard it where the water fell; 
I felt it on the slopes of grain 
And in the wind before the rain. 

She sang, she sang as the bird sings 
The song of songs on stintless wings, 

148 



She, sang the full and flexile music of the 

heart, — 
She had never heard of art. 

I saw the color in the woods, 

I smelled the odors in the hoods 

Of bergamot and citronel; 

The wind was in the orchard trees 

The fields gave up their melodies. 

And in the lanes I knew the spell 

Of one who sings straightforthly well. 



149 



'CELLO 

''My father^s 'cello. . . . The Norwegian wood is used 
almost entirely for this instrument, . . . made in their own 
country and for their own use." 

He drew the bow across the strings. 
I saw the dream fall in his eyes 
I saw the wizard mem'ries rise 
I saw the distant listenings. 

He drew the bow across the strings. 
His fingers fell as one who brings 
The dulcet of some old romance; 
And through the wood the resonance 
From cell to cell awoke again 
And bore the ravish of the strain. 

Once more he drew across the strings. 
Once more he stopped as one who wakes 
The tokens of old singing things 
And of their reverie partakes. 

He was one of nature's listeners. 
He heard the voices of the firs 
The tinklet of the dropping rills 

150 



In distant Norway's cragged hills 
Where grew the wood all clear and brent 
That built the magic instrument; 
And when he drew across the strings 
He heard the swish of eagle's wings, 
The mighty surge of waters beat 
'Gainst holm and stack and mountain feet, 
The winds that veer on heathered heights. 
And cricket's crick on quiet nights. 
He heard the tunes of masters' hands 
That drew the bow across these strands 
A hundred years in Hungary; 
He heard the olden melody 
Of children's laughs and mother's fears 
Played on the strings of fateful years; 
And sacred things he could not name 
From cell and cell in numbers came. 

He drew the bow across the strings, — 
Then stopped and list as one who brings 
Far treasures of old singing things. 



151 



PAUSE 

Some sounds I hear at gray twilight — 
I pause that I may hear them right. 

I hear a wagon yonder-way 

It has a sound like close of day; 

Some person spoke something somewhere 

It almost broke the hollow air; 

Two leaves strike thinly on the bough 

The leaves are flapping tunely now; 

The wind sinks down with such caress 

That I can hear its silentness; 

There is a tinkle like a bell 

I think it sounds the day farewell. 

Some sounds I hear at soft twilight 
And I can feel the answer quite 
Along the marges of the night. 



152 



POET 

Tell me, O Poet, where thou dost live 

Show me the place whereon thou dost stand 

Lead me to the crests that give 

Those wondrous scenes thou dost command 

And let my waiting soul enwreathe 

The rarer airs that thou dost breathe 

Upon thy diamond shore. 

He took me by the hand 

And led me to my own hearthstone 

We paused upon the wonted floor 

And silent stood alone — 

Till all the space was over-pent 

With a magic wonderment; 

And I found the Poet's store 

On the threshold of my door. 



153 



COVER 

The hens have gone to roost 

For the tension of the day is loosed, 

I see them in the trees 

I know they are at ease. 

The cattle stand waiting at the gate 

A distant dog barks inanimate 

The tree-tops rise in silhouettes 

Beyond the silent rivulets 

A barn door clinks for covered night 

The smokes lie low and sounds are slights 

The rubid vibrant day has gone 

The day that rose at pulsing dawn 

And beat its strokes into my brain 

In one actinic ceaseless strain. 

The shades are drawn athwart the strokes 

And the creatures and the folks 

Are paused and still, 

They do as they will; 

Now they rest; 

The alkahest 

Comes with the dusking of the West, 

154 



And they pass on to other states 

When space less fiercely palpitates; 

They will recover from the tremor and the 

whet 
Of the wave-beats of the ultra-violet. 



155 



STRENGTH 

Lone I sit beside the ingle 
With the rain upon the shingle 
And the elements commingle 
In a weaving drifting song; 

Well I hear the dead leaves scatter 
And the ceaseless ceaseless shatter 
Of the inundating patter 

In the hours both deep and long; 

Now I feel the world's keen sorrow 
And the gainless wish to borrow 
Some surceasement for the morrow 
'Gainst the old pursuing wrong; 

But the healing rains are sweeping 
And the cleansing ground is sleeping- 
So I give me to their keeping 
For I know the earth is strong. 



156 



THREE 

The chickadee, the closed gentian. 
And the doubts I dare not mention: — 

We three together were 

One ashen autumn day. 

I'd gone by cottager 

A long and lonely way; 

The clouds were low and chill 

The scudding leaves whipped by 

The winds were deadly shrill 

No break was in the sky. 

I sat disconsolate 

My eyes were on the ground 

With no power to frustrate 

Or sadness to abate. 

As if I had been drowned. 

Then I heard the brave bird call 

Merrily stoutly from the self-same air; 

Then I saw the gentian small 

Blooming still in the autumn bare. — 

And I felt the wonder there 

In the ground and everywhere 

Rising slowly like a prayer. 



167 



HIM 

I SAW the grimmy monument 

On builded thoroughfare 

Where pauselessly the people went 

And no one seemed to care, 

I thought that on the surfeit street 

These things less prized are 

Than far away in some retreat 

With wind and cloud and star, 

I thought that he who's ever great 

Works out his plan alone 

And not where men do congregate 

On lanes of sculptured stone; 

Then out upon some meadow-by 

A cairn we'll pile to him 

We'll pile it wide and pile it high 

With ample arc and rim, 

We'll pile it of the stones afield 

From nearby brook and pent 

And let its silence unconcealed 

Stand forth his monument. 



158 



TWO 

Burly dozy bumble-bee 

Inch-high bumbHng on this juiceless mould, 

Some forty feet your circuit is 

About this hemlock-tree; 

Intent upon your business 

Unmindful of the wind and me 

Some wizardry I judge you hold: 

What is your part and genesis? 

Where did you get your cloth-of-gold ? 

Full hour have I watched you on this spot 

Buzzing busily about this single tree 

And yet you have seen it not — 

You have not seen even me; 

I know not what may be your design 

And certainly you know not mine — 

I doubt me whether you know thine; 

Your world is paltry small — 

By forty feet is your ambition bond: 

I have seen the stars and all 

(Of course I have not seen beyond). 



159 



NAUGHT 



"Sound is the sensation produced on an organ of hearing. 
If there were no ears there would be no sounds." 



There is no noise in nature, — 

All its wild inflature 

Is as silent as the dead. 

What awful eons sped 

Before some nerve of hearing 

Caught the rhythm of the sphering 

Of the wind in the cosmic energies 

And knew that there is accent in the rolling 

of the seas! 
When the voices came to being 
With the feeling and the seeing 
Then the silent secret earth 
Gave its message and its worth 
And all the ears that came thereafter 
Have heard the music and the laughter 
Of its million falling streams 
And have caught them in their dreams. 

Oh the blankness of those stages 
In the far and fearful ages 

160 



When a cycle and a cycle were a year 

And there was no sense to hear! 

Old earth was in the making 

And 'twas hasteless for the waking. 

Yet I know that in the spaces 

Of the earth's unpeopled places 

I still may stand upon the shores that are 

voiceless but for me, — 
For me the rush of tempests and the call 

of Cybele. 

And may there still be waiting 

Some other sense translating 

A world in which unknowingly we live 

To which no nerve is sensitive? 

Are not the secrecies forthbidden? 

Shall the utter things be hidden 

At the last 

When the years are past? 

Why should we be with faith endowed 

What soul moves in the tree 

What lies beyond the wraith of cloud 

What lies beyond the sea? 



161 



ANCHORAGE 

"In the Galaxy or Milky Way and other parts of the 
heavens are what appear to be holes or windows that open 
out to absolute night." 

Beneath the millioned Milky Way 
In silent night and meteor-sway 
I stand, an atom lost and lone 
Upon the broadcast welkin thrown. 
And yet out-through the Galaxy 
And awful webs of nebulae 
They tell me there are openings 
That lead beyond the ends of things. 

And if there be the windows then 

That open from the outmost ken 

Out to arcana vast and far 

Beyond the glint of any star 

Into the wonder-deeps of black 

From which no sign or hint comes back 

To tell us of the void abyss 

Of Chaos all creationless 

Where leagues by billions drop and blend 

And yet no nearer comes the end, — 

Then may there be in some far realm 

162 



Another cosmos, and a whelm 
Of myriad cohorts whirling hence 
Beyond that last circumference? 
And still beyond, what may be there 
What mighty systems unaware? 

And are there then no ends or bounds 
No time, no death, but shoreless rounds? 
No place but from some vast frontier 
Some vaster place shall then appear? 

And if there be no thing beyond, what is the Outer 

Dark? 
Where is the boundless boundary, what is there in 

the stark? 

Stand still my heart! And let me iSnd 
Some shelter-place for my small mind. 

* * * 

I know I stand upon my shore. 
I know I look through open door. 
I know that spaces stretch before. 

Unto my solid earth I cling 
And grip myself to everything 
That to my conquest I can bring; 
I must be of the Fact aware 

163 



Then let my vision outward fare 
Nor fear whatever may be there, — 
As wide and free as windows are 
That open to the spaces far 
Beyond the ghnt of any star. 

Much joy it is that we may be 
Some part of plan so wonderly 
And dream the dreams of mystery. 



164 



WHICH 

A FEW quick years, some sense of range and gyve 
Some retrospect, some look ahead, — 
Is it the normal state to be alive 
Or is it normal to be dead? 



165 



WEFT 

The necessity is on me 
And I run the leaping years 
No essential thing shall shun me 
Though the way be wet with tears 
For the mills of earth have spun me 
On the rolling hemispheres. 



166 



FELLOWSHIP 

In eastern lands 

Where Mithras taught his sacred bands 

They bode the coming of the day; 

And when the hours of night were run 

They bowed themselves to earth to pray 

And prostrate knelt before the Great God Sun. 

In western lands 

I outward look and walk my sands, 

And I await the coming of the day; 

I see the night dissolve away 

And stars fade out and mountains rise 

And baldric bars implant the skies; 

I feel a thousand voices wake 

And all great sounds and shapes of gods and men 

their long-accustomed courses take: 
But I humble not nor bend the knee 
For I worship them not and they worship not me; 
I stand forthright when the night is done 
And raise my arm and hail my Great Brother, the 

Sun. 



167 



BROTHERHOOD 

Weather and wind and waning moon 
Plain and hilltop under the sky 
Ev'ning, morning and blazing noon, 
Brother of all the world am I. 
The pine-tree, linden and the maize 
The insect, squirrel and the kine 
AU-natively they live their days — 
As they live theirs, so I live mine. 
I know not where, I know not what: — 
Believing none and doubting none 
Whatso befalls it counteth not, — 
Nature and time and I are one. 

The wild bird fashions its nest of straw, — 

The bird abides by its time and law; 

The forest stands by the night and day. 

The flower blooms and it fades away; 

The earth grows green and the earth grows brown. 

Life rises up and then death comes down; 

The life and soul of the things that be 

It flows on and on unceasingly. 

The wind blows out to the ageless sky, 
And the placeless clouds go floating by; 

168 



The rain descends and the rivers flow, 
The summers come and the winters go; 
The dusk returns and the morning Hght, 
And call of day and the voice of night; 
The ages run to a silent sea, 
Flowing and flowing eternally. 

I am the bird in its nest of straw 

And I abide by my time and law, 

I am the tree standing night and day. 

And I am the plant that fades away; 

And men grow green and the men grow brown. 

And life rises up and death drops down; 

And men, and life, and the things that be 

They flow on and on unceasingly, 

I am the wind that blows to the sky. 
And ageless cloud that goes floating by; 
I am the rain and the river flow, 
I am the seasons that come and go; 
I am the dusk and the morning light. 
The call of day and the voice of night; 
And I pass out to the silent sea, 
Flowing and flowing eternally. 



169 



I AM 

I LIE on my back on the shingle shore 
Subdued by the wind and the pebbly roar; 
I see the white clouds in their domes of air 
And the specks of birds that are floating there; 
And the earth is small and the sky is large — 
I forget the sense of my time and charge; 
I am lost in awe of the Great Program — 
Only this I know: I know that I am. 

The wild earth it is swinging afree from its place 

It is rolling adrift on the limitless space 

It is sailing away past cerulean bars 

It is passing the moon and the sun and the stars; — 
And the wind and the wind it is following fast. 
And the sunshine and shadow are scurrying past. 
And white cloud-shafts are pointing with finger- 
ing streams 
That are caught and are lost in the myths of my 
dreams. 

Oh ferry me out to the bold deep sky, 
Oh blow me away through the blue, — 
I will snatch the years as they hasten by 

170 



And scatter their days as the dew: 
For the years and years are but shapes pro- 
found 
That are bred in the depths subHme, 
And that ride and ride in their fruitless round 
On the perishing wings of Time. 

Oh carry me out where the stariights burn 
Where the world-stuff billows and sweeps, — 
I will grasp the orbs as they pass in turn 
And fling them adrift on the deeps: 

For the worlds and worlds may vanish as air, 

And schemes of the universe fall, 

Yet will I fly to some vast Otherwhere 

And hold my domain Over All. 



171 



PROCESS 

Blow down ye gales from your mountain heights 
Roll out ye thunders from your gates ajar 
Fall lightning's stroke and besom of blights 
And the polar flashfire and shooting star, — 
The world builds large on the bridge of nights 
And the way is open and fresh and far! 

I hear the sweep of the rolling looms 

As the globe is hurled through the shuttle-jaw 

Forth and back from its infinite dooms; 

The whelming surge of the ocean's maw 

Avalanche crash and the glacier-booms 

River's rank wash and the yawning flaw 

And earthquake blast and the crater fumes 

The radium might of the crusted scraw 

Of the earth, labor of countless blooms 

The man-insect's work and polyp's law 

Loss and decay in unheard-of tombs 

And ever the sun and wind and thaw 

And a million shores of birthing spumes 

Are wrought on a world that's young and raw. 

All in the making is; never done 
Is the process of the old creation-plot — 

172 



Escape or delay there is for none; 

All worths and shames are in the melting-pot 

And the vivid stuff of life is run 

In shapes protean and through moulds white-hot. 

Blow down ye gales from your mountain heights 
And let me drive on your breeding flights! 



173 



WRECK 

In the field I saw as the train went by 
The wreck of a carriage tattered and dry; 
The winds had found it, and the lush weeds ran 
Under and over the ruins of man. 

With labor ^twas made by a hundred hands 
With stuff assembled from a hundred lands 
And 'twas sent with hope down a hundred sands; 
But the mishap came and its work was done 
And 'twas given back to the earth and sun 
And stout nature took it as nature does 
When man gives up, and whatever it was 
Will never again foregathered be 
Into fabric or fold or filigree, 
But sometime somewhere each atom appear 
As blush of a bloom or a gossamere 
Or ion of signs in brain of a seer. 

To destroy, to rebuild: the rounds maintain 
In the wear and tear and the sun and rain 
And hap or mishap it accounteth not 
For all cometh back to the common lot 

174 



And ev'ry wreck since the morning of time 
Hath taken its place in the plan sublime. 
Nothing is lost; so the builder weeds ran 
Over and under the fond works of man. 



175 



DECEMBER 

It is now the high December. 
The last betokened ember 
Of the striving vivid year 
That survived the brown November 
Lies dead and painless here 
Lies dead and pinched and sere; 
And the fruits of proud September 
Are hanging hanging here 
They are hanging thin and sere; 
And the masks of ward and rober 
That bedecked the dyed October 
They have found their finish here 
They are lying crisped and sere 
They are drifting bleached and blear. 

It was in a far December 
As distinctly I remember 
Of a youthful doubtful year 
That I sat in whitened fear 
Of the death-end of the year; 
176 



For in forests gray and sober 

I had mourned the red October 

I had grieved for forests dry and drear; 

And the crows and chickadees 

And the wind-gusts in the trees 

Made my sorrow sharp and clear, 

And the leaves keen-edged and sere 

Rasped an anguish in my ear 

Of the dead and absent year. 

But oh! the winds of great December 

Since the dumb days I remember 

Have blown me wholeness of the year 

They have brought their tokens here, 

And the proudness of September 

Lays its best expression here; 

And the silence seemeth good. 

And the bareness of the wood 

Is the bareness of the truth. 

And age and youth 

Do pause awhile and rest 

At the glory of the East and the honor of 

the West; 
And the year is never wanting 
And the way is never vain 
And the creatures go undaunting 
In the windrift and the rain. 
177 



Blow ye snows of old December 

Drifting drifting down 

Blow ye leaves of hale November 

Drifting sere and brown, 

All the years that I remember 

With the snow come down. 



178 



THE WOE-WINGED BIRDS 

There is a road that I have walked in many a 
long and hopeful year 

It leads through dingled garden-spots and blossomy 
woodlands ripe with cheer; 

And yet upon this hopeful road lives a brood of 
black and fearsome birds 

That settle down athwart my path in dread and 
desolate woe-winged herds 

And all the haunting fears that their swarm fore- 
bodes I dare not put in words. 

I see not what their droves presage or what omens 

dark their crews portend 
What augury of pain and loss^ or what deep despair 

I must forefend, — 
And while I fear I journey on and the dismal ghouls 

take leisure flight 
Circling through the heavens wide and farther down 

my hopeful road alight: 
I have never overtaken them and know not why I 

should have fright. 



179 



THUNDER-CALL 

1 HEARD the thunder roll last night 

The thunder warm and wet; 
It was the first great voice of spring 

And winter suns are set. 

I grieve to have the winter go 

The winter old and gray, 
Yet joy to have the springtime come 

And bring my youth this way. 

Again will changeful Aprils pass 

The Aprils young and fain, 
Of drifting flocks of honking geese 

And wifts of big-dropped rain. 

I bound again from open door 

When April thunders roll 
When soft winds blow from out the south 

And low clouds shift and shoal; 
I romp away to purpling woods 

To misty liquid skies 
The snow-free turf beneath my feet 

The big world in my eyes. 

180 



I jfind the ferns and matted moss 
That slept beneath the snows 

And walk the logs that silent lay- 
Since autumn's waning close; 

I search for dens of coon and fox 
Old hawk's nests in the trees, 

And start at ev'ry nimble sound 
That meets me in the breeze. 

I follow up the swelling creek 

And stop the sticks that ride, 
I halt at ev'ry greening shoot 

And push the earth aside; 
I wonder wonder as I roam 

What riddles might be told 
How all the many hiding things 

Have passed the winter old. 

Again I feel the tingling pulse 

When bluebird's curling rote 
Drops here and there from out the sky 

An unembodied note; 
I track the sparrows in the fields 

Through brush and grasses fawn, 
I hear the robins in the trees — 

Few seen yet on my lawn. 

They call me out and lead me on — 
These thunders of the spring, 

181 



Beyond all plains and hills I know 

Their wander-challenge fling; 
Old outposts fade and pass away 

In flux of great desires, 
And on the marge of many woods 

I build my camping fires. 

I wait to drive the plow afield 

And rip the furrows free 
And breathe the fragrance quick and full 

Where soils and solvents be; 
I long to fling the seeding oats 

And hear them strike the earth 
And feel that I shall help the year 

To yield its harvest-worth. 

And all the train of birds and rains 

As fresh and new appears 
As when the thunder first I heard 

Tore fifty flowing years; 
And still I tramp the earth-brown farms 

I splash the breaking rills 
And watch the slanting rainstorms drift 

Across the weathered hills. 

I heard the thunder roll last night 

The thunder soft and low, — 
The changing years are moving on 

The ceaseless waters flow. 
182 



I grieve to have the seasons fly 
The seasons loved and long, 

Yet joy in ev'ry day that comes 
To seize its message strong. 

Again the changeful Aprils pass 
The Aprils good and young 

That pledge me from my housen-hold 
To earth from which I sprung. 



183 



DISCOVERY 

I WENT into the starlit night, I sat me by the way, 
A silence overtook me there, a silence soft and 

gray; 
I roamed into the forest depths, I wandered far 

and far, 
The silence followed where I went, like silence of 

the star. 
I toiled unto the mountain tops, I saw the range 

on range. 
The silence lay superbly there, resisting time and 

change; 
I went upon the rivers long that lay by north and 

west. 
The silence rested on the flood as on the mountain 

crest. 
I sailed upon the circled seas ten thousand miles 

and more. 
The silence cast its spell thereon and in the tem- 
pest roar; 
I walked the way of hoarded marts where trading 

millions be 
And felt the brooding silence there like silence of 

the sea. 

184 



I passed into the homes of men, by peoples mani- 
fold, 

And heard forgotten silences of years and days 
untold; 

I went into my questioned heart, my heart of 
hopes and fears, — 

I found the perfect silence there, the silence of the 
years. 



185 



HE 

He stood outside with sun and star 
He stood on tops with frost and spar 
He stood stock staid where tempests are 
A prophet of the things afar. 



186 



PROPHET 

He came straight forth from his grim and grime 

Straight up from the sinks of hell 
And told the throng with no mock or mime 

Of things that to him befell. 

Like arrows shot the words caught and came 

And struck the heart to its core 
Crude thunder-shafts from a neif and name 

That could hide its self no more. 

Half hour his hot bolts flew stript and straight 
We were dazed with missiles sent — 

Then out he strode from our ground and gate 
And we know not where he went. 



187 



BOTH 

A PRIEST with a book 
And a holy look 
Sought well for the light 
For the sacred light 

And I greeted him there as a brother; 
A man by the brook 
Where the bloom-bells shook 
Sought well for the light 
The same sacred light, — 

But the two were astrange to each other, 



188 



MAJESTY 

** Sometimes her whole being seemed to become petrified in 
a silent suspense more thrilling than any action — as if her 
imagination were suddenly enthralled by the tumult and awe 
of its own vast perceptions." — William Winter, of Charlotte 
Cushman, 

No voice was there, 

Nor speech or gesture could declare 

The majesty she felt; 

When moments great and wonderings 

And visions of transcendent things 

Are in the being dwelt, 

Grandly we stand 

The verities are spanned 

For the soul cannot express 

Its authority and stress, — 

The greatest speech is silentness. 

And now I know why mountain peak 
And silent sea supremely speak. 



189 



OTHERWHERE 

Time presses on with its burdening care 
The years are hard-lad'n with gales, 

But now I dream to the Otherwhere 
And rest in its margeless vales. 

No more I search in the distant lands 
For the peace my soul to free, 

I sit me down on the nearest strands 
And my peace comes down to me. 

Content I stand while the shifting year 
Brings me home its golden freight, 

For the Otherwheres all meet me here 
And my stars unhasting wait. 

The Otherwhere is the hills and isles 
Slow passing me one by one; 

Together joined they will tell the miles 
When the race of life is done. 

New islands come at each breaking morn 
And higher their white domes rise, 

190 



Clearer the heights where my dreams are born 
The tops are piercing the skies. 

I see the sears in the furrowed sides 

I note the wrack on the seas, 
But I set my ship on rising tides 

For Hfe is other than these. 

I would not ^scape the furrows and seams ' 
That are plowed by rains and tears, 

The mead of life is the brooding dreams 
Spun in the web of the years. 

And when the last day complete shall ope 

I will gather my dreams to me. 
And setting my ship to th' Isle of Hope 

Sail out on the somnolent sea. 



191 



JOURNEY 

It is a journey deep and free 

That I have entered on, 
It stretches from the Morning Sea 

To vasts of Even Sun. 

At first I gazed in wonder out 
Where sounds and colors blent 

Attracted by the faery rout 
Unknowing that I went. 

Then stretched a plain all warm and long 
With sights and pleasures spread — 

I trooped it on in play and song 
Uncaring where it led. 

Every beast and bird I stopped 

And asked who he might be, 
Every flower and fruit that dropped 

A question was to me. 

And then I learned their names and scars 
And traced them to their homes, 

And oft at night then watched the stars 
Within their awful domes. 

192 



Till all the wilds and rains that fell 

They tied the world to me 
And wove therein a magic spell 

Of slender mystery. 

I climbed the sides of star-blown heights 

Where rolling rivers ran, 
I stopped where wood-gods made their rites, 

I roamed the fields with Pan. 

And now upon my table-lands 

Of mountains great and high 
From orb to orb my sky out-stands 

And cosmic sundowns lie. 

Yet 'side with me upon the way 

Are friends of th' olden-trip — 
The beasts and birds, the winds at play, 

In great companionship. 

I wonder still as when a child 

And still a dreamer be, 
And far adown the journey aisled 

Some margent vision see. 

And if so be the dizzy peaks 

No longer rise before 
Then will the simple sleepful creeks 

Sustain me more and more. 

193 



BACK 

Delivered at last! 
The fetters are cast 
And the gates are outpassed. 

Now back I go to the old-time lure 
Back where I know that my footing is sure 
Back to my swamps and my running brooks 
Back to my woods and the nowhere nooks 
That I knew long years ere I knew the books. 

Out to my backgrounds, and to stand on the earth 
Where time is at full, nor surfeit or dearth 
Is part of the reckoning; always nature is whole, 
The wind is the wind and the sun is the sun 
Nor farther than this doth any man run 
With his grasp or control; 

To be free, not of care 

Or of labor or share, 

But to look on the world with eyes of one's own 

And to think a clear thought detached and alone 

And to say as one thinks it when the thought is 

full grown 
Or to hold it in treasure unsaid and unknown; — 

194 



Then to the fields for a hint and for clue to the 

night 
The old when ^tis living hath leaven and might 
For the bushes are real and the fishes are right. 



195 



THE LITTLE SHIPS AND THE BIG 

SHIPS 

The little ships in the harbor sit 
The spotless sails are in zephyrs lit; 

Bob and dance 

Nod and prance, 

They courtesy and nip 

On the racing rip; 
The little ships complaisantly flit 
Where shoreless weeds on the surface skit. 

The little ships to the ocean sail, 
Salute and rock by the shore-line trail; 
But they shelter seek when daylights fail 
And drive on rocks in the hounding gale. 

The giant ships in the harbor sleep 

The placid hulls feel no shore-winds sweep; 

Stanch and straight 

Calm and state, 

Unheeding they go 

On the rolling flow; 
The giant ships reach the currents deep 
Where the grounding streams their silence keep. 

196 



The giant ships to the ocean's roar 
Sail out and out with the wilds before 
Nor turn them back when the tempests soar 
For their stems are set to th' other shore. 



197 



FIVE 

I SEE and hear and smell, I feel and taste, 
I make my way with seemly haste 
To pick from out the cosmic waste 
Some odds of things that I may know. 

With staff and arc, by scale and balance fine. 
With mark and symbol and with line 
I measure all and call it mine 
And say that it is thus and so. 

And yet and yet some simple daily flower, 
The essence of the passing hour, 
The Whence wherefrom I draw my power. 
The reasons why the forests grow, 

What all the seeming part and content is 
Of this great nature's mysteries, 
The springs of life, the destinies. 
Remain unmeasured as I go. 

And the Sacred Five, I shall lay them by 
And dream for reasons as I lie; 
I have no measures to apply — 
All things continuously flow. 



198 



HIVE 

The building bees are humming 
About the angled comb 
And yellow bees are coming 
With treasure laden home, 
And other bees are going 
To orchard and to bloom 
To fetch new sweetness flowing 
For ev'ry honeyed room; 
Ten thousand blooms are vying 
Wherever they may roam — 
In hurst or fallow flying 
The journey leadeth home. 



199 



NAY 

"And finally we have come to the last days, when mankind 
will be governed by science." 

Nay! There is no finality. 
No dictum to obey; 
Nature is one vast infinity, 
And the mind a small timidity 
Feeling the way. 

We make the quest 

The day is gone 

We do our best 

To found our action firm thereon. 

And this is well. 

The magic spell 

Of high discovery, 

The emprise of the licensed mind 

That leaves tradition far behind 

For one more fact secure to find 

And one more fortress to unbond — 

This is indeed great mastery. 

But other reaches stretch beyond: 

And at the last and at the last 

200 



When the early quest is past 
And the mind is fuller grown 
We shall project the vast unknown 
Direct from prospects of the soul 
From the free outreaching soul, 
Intuitive the truth make whole. 

When the last proud fact is said 

And the knowledge hath been read 

And the sum of science heard 

Shall the poet say the word 

The last great word, — 

He the last to strike the stringed lyre 

The last to lift the pharos-fire. 



201 



THE ROUNDS 

Yesterday 

We rushed away 

From Verilese to Leth, 

Along the way 

The journey lay 

Hard by the balds of Geth. 

We learn and say 

The argument 

Of tome resplent 

We hear the voices pray 

To courage us for death; 

And yet alway 

Doth the circuit lay 

From Verilese to Leth, 

Yet day by day 

Do we take our way 

By the bared balds of Geth. 

Swift and far the journey is 
Beyond our soft philosophies 
Beyond the sooth the sayer saith 

202 



Beyond the in-man's ease 

Down to the swoons of death; 

We tread the mills of Verilese 

And run the toils of Geth 

We drop the world's remembered keys 

Amidst the moils of Leth. 



203 



FAITH AND TRUST 

Two workmen true as I passed by 
Announced what things beyond us lie,- 
Two views that never can agree 
Yet each one knew just what will be. 
Of present days they were not sure 
But each man's future was secure. 
For faith had set them both to know 
Precisely how our destins flow. 

But only this and this I know, — 
That I am here and then I go. 
I pass my work with hope and zest 
And live my time as it seems best; 
I live it full and drain it deep, — 
'Tis well to live, 'tis vain to weep. 
If there be things I cannot tell 
The more I trust that all is well. 
I take the cheer from daily lot 
And for the rest I vex me not. 
For what there is beyond the sod 
I leave it all to Time and God. 



204 



RESURRECTION 

I DREAMED I dwelt beyond Mars, 
I dreamed that I saw new stars, 
I dreamed that the holy bars 
Of my earthly avatars 

Were loosed from me forever; 
And I dropped them one by one 
Down the lambents of the sun 
And I watched them as they spun 
Where the planes of Chaos run 

Like flowers dropped on a river; 
And I felt a pang of dread 
For a moment as they sped, — 
But I saw that overhead 
Greater lustres were aspread 

Like rainbows brimming over. 



205 



THIS GREENWOOD TREE 

Under this greenwood tree 

The air is sweet and the wind is free 

The sun burns tenderly 

And the grass is green as it used to be. 

How dear the old familiar places are! 

I pass through them unaware — 

The twilight hills are there 

The evening star 

The spaces vast between 

But not so vast as they were then 

The paths that lead to everywhere 

The churchyard on the green 

Where the hollies bud again 

The oak-top strong and wide 

The brook that falls through field and fen 

The garden close beside, 

And the house wherein I died. 

It was under this greenwood tree 
They placed what they knew of me 
And they said their whispered requiems 
Beneath these pleasant leafy stems 

206 



(How wonderful these leafy stems!) 
Here all the years are narratived 
Of the olden life that once I lived. 

I loved life; 

I loved the body that I bore 

And when the time was full and rife 

To leave it evermore — 
Those feet of the ready-travelled year 
The fingers that had brought the out-things near 
The eyes that knew the circled atmosphere — 

I could not quite forget, — 

Ah God ! it were my one regret. 

And now they come as then they came 

A multitude of man and child 

New of visage and of name 

And by new vistas reconciled; 

And new requiems will be said 

When the crisped leaves are shed 

And they all likewise will be dead. 

But now when shades are long and winds are nigh 

By noon and night with vacant eye 

They see me not and pass me by; 

They wait till all the dead are caravanned, — 

Dear things! they cannot understand. 



207 



MY GREAT OAK TREE 

In a far foreign land there is a great oak tree 
And I never can tell what it meaneth to me. 

Thither I went in the days long ago 
And sat in its shade when the sun was low; 
A sadness deep had then carried me down 
Where the life-cheer ebbs and the soul-fires drown; 
Then the great strong arms and whispering leaves 
Bestowed me the faiths of their age-long eves 
Till the day-bred fears were winnowed apart 
And the peace of the place fell to my heart. 

And thrice away since then far over the sea 
Have I journeyed alone to my old oak tree 
And silently sat in its brotherly shade 
And I felt no longer alone and afraid; 
I was filled with strength of its brawny-ribbed bole 
And the leaves slow-whispered their peace in my 
soul. 

208 



If never again I travel the sea 
Nor feel once more the still message to me, 
Glad will I call where my haven may be 
Farewell and farewell to my great oak tree. 



209 



MY BROKEN TREE 

Over my cliff is a maple tree 

That always delights my heart to see. 

In some stormy day its smooth bole fell 
And now lies prone where it started well. 

Its trunk is scarred, and with branchlets weak 
That struggle still to the light they seek. 

But straight to the blue its new limbs rise 
And spread their leaves to the rains and skies. 

One would not know from the verdant crown 
That winds had beaten the old trunk down. 

Its neighbors stern in the forest grim 
Stand stiff and strict and all churchly prim. 

But its branches spread more wide than they 
And fling their fruits to the winds away. 

210 



And panellings fine its bole will make 
When the artist comes his part to take. 

Over my cliff is a broken tree 

That it always cheers my heart to see. 



211 



UNDERTONE 

From morning till night and everywhere 
My days are full of their effort and care; 
Full of labors to drive and schemes to test, 
Of work to finish and knowledge to wrest; 
And the known result of this noise and strife 
Is what men and the world all call my life, — 
This is the meed of the work that I own 
Outspread on my life as an overtone. 

But ever there runs through the work I own 
The all-silent stream of an undertone. 
This stream is myself as my life I live 
And out of it flows all the strength I give. 
It's the tone of hills and calm of the plain 
The smell of the soil and the touch of rain; 
Tis a careful thought of the calm sweet grass 
An abiding joy in the birds that pass 
In the mite that lives in the growing shoot 
And the changing tints of the leaf and fruit; 
Tis the melting snows and the morning sun 
And the soft gray days and the marshes dun; 
'Tis appeal of frost and the fragile dew 
Of the passing clouds and the depths of blue;- 

212 



Then a quiet heart that can give no sign 
Of the sacred calms that are only mine, 
Or the gentle sins that are part of me 
As the silent twigs are part of the tree, 
Or memories deep I cannot express 
Any more than the tree in its wilderness. 

The peace of the winds is my undertone — 
I move with the crowd, but I live alone. 



213 



ANNETTE 

*Tis many years since we were horn 
'Tis many years since we were wed — 
The winds have blown from night till morn 
As they will blow when we are dead. 



214 



INDEX 



Anchorage, 162. 
Annette, 214. 
Apple-Blow, 66. 
Apple- Year, 71. 
At Midnight, 54. 
Away, 16. 

Back, 194. 

Beacon, 140. 

Bell Buoy, 52. 

Between, 45. 

Big Ships and Little Ships, 196. 

Birds, Woe- Winged, 179. 

Both, 188. 

Brotherhood, 168. 

Campanula, 64. 
Cascadin, 51. 
'Cello, 150. 
Child's Realm, 119. 
Church, Country, 122. 
Clover, White, 70. 
Columbine, 60. 
Cosmos, 4. 

Country Church, 122. 
Country School, 120. 
Cover, 154. 
Cybele, 2. 

Daybreak, 133. 
Day-Dust, 8. 
Dead of Winter, 14. 
December, 176. 
Deeps, 56. 
Desert, 88. 
Discovery, 184. 
Drain, Tile, 116. 

Enough, 50. 

Faith and Trust, 204. 
Farmer, 106. 
Farmer's Challenge, 107. 
Farmer, The Young, 112. 



Farthermost Hills, 138. 
Fellowship, 167. 
Five, 198. 

Goods, 126. 

Great High-Roads, The, 82. 
Great Voice, 28. 
Greenwood Tree, This, 206. 

Hands, 102. 

He, 186. 

Here, 111. 

Hermit Thrush, 76. 

High-Roads, The Great, 82. 

HiU-Paths, 136. 

Hills, Farthermost, 138. 

Hills, Purple, 139. 

Him, 158. 

Hive, 199. 

Horizon, 80. 

I Am, 17. 
I Plow, 108. 
It Rained, 130. 

January, 13. 
John, 114. 
Journey, 192. 

Leaf, Mighty, 68. 

Life, Signs of, 104. 

Little Ships and Big Ships, 196. 

Majesty, 189. 

Marvel, 86. 

Midnight, At, 54. 

Mighty Leaf, 68. 

Miracle, 59. 

Moon, New, 142. 

Mother Mud, 100. 

Mt. Tom, 92. 

My Broken Tree, 210. 

My Great Oak Tree, 208. 

My Purple Hills, 138. 



215 



Naught, 160. 
Nay, 200. 
New Moon, 142. 
Night-Rain, 6. 
Night- Wind, 20. 

One, 85. 

Otherwhere, 190. 
Out, 141. 

Paths, Hill, 136. 
Pause, 152. 
Penthorum, 74. 
Piow-Boy, 110. 
Plow, I, 108. 
Poet, 153. 
Prayer, 76. 
Process, 172. 
Prophet, 187. 
Purple Hills, 138. 
Purple River, 35. 

Rained, It, 130. 
Rainy Day, 5. 
Realm, Child's, 119. 
Release, 3. 
Requiem, 49. 
Rest, 146. 
Resurrection, 205. 
Riches, 48. 
River, Purple, 35. 
Rivers, Vagrant, 38. 
Rivulet, Spring, 41. 
Roads, Great High-, 82. 
Roimds, 202. 

School, Coimtry, 120. 

Sea-Grave, 58. 

Seer, and Sower, 127. 

She Sang, 148. 

Ships, The Little and Big, 196. 

Signs of Life, 104. 

Skein, 147. 

Snow-storm, 12. 

Sower and Seer, 127. 

Spare Me One Swamp, 90. 

Spirit, 144. 

Spring Rivulet. 41. 

Star. 47. 



Starlight, 46. 

Strength, 156. 

Summons, 95. 

Swamp, Spare Me One, 90. 

Symphony, 25. 

There, 34. 

This Greenwood Tree, 206. 

Three, 157. 

Thrush, Hermit, 76. 

Thunder-CaU, 180. 

Tile Drain, 116. 

Trade-Wind, 26. 

Traveller, Wishful, 81. 

Tree, My Broken, 210. 

Tree, My Great Oak, 208. 

Tree, This Greenwood, 206. 

Tropic, 15. 

Trust, and Faith, 2a4. 

Two, 159. 



Undertone, 212. 
Upper Wind, 30. 
UtiUty. 124. 

Vagrant Rivers, 38. 
Vesper, 130. 

Weft, 166. 
Which, 165. 
White Clover, 70. 
Wind and Weather, 1. 
Wind Blows, 22. 
Wind, Night, 20. 
Wind, The, 17. 
Wind, Trade, 26. 
Wind, Upper, 30. 
Winds of the Sea, Ye, 32. 
Winter, 10. 
Winter, Dead of, 14. 
Wishful Traveller, 81. 
Woe- Winged Birds, 179. 
Wreck, 174. 

Ye Winds of the Sea, 32. 
YeUow-Bird, 78. 
Yonder, 98. 
Young Farmer, 112. 



216 



IL'^ 



